


In Fire And Blood

by kally77



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Buffy Wishverse, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:02:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 66,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/850899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kally77/pseuds/kally77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cordelia's wish wasn't broken, and Buffy didn't come to Sunnydale on her own...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Buffy realizes she hates her Watcher more than she hates a certain vamp.

**Author's Note:**

> _In this part of the story I am the one who_   
>  _Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,_   
>  _Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **P. Neruda**

Jumping off the RTA bus, Buffy squinted against the brightness of the street. As a child, she had loved snow when she saw it on television, but a few weeks of winter in Cleveland had changed her mind. Fresh as they were now, the mounts of whiteness were blinding, especially to someone more used to darkness than full daylight. Soon though the snow would turn to a gray mush, with no redeeming quality whatsoever. She only hoped she would be out of Cleveland by then.

Hands thrust deep in the pockets of her too-thin jacket, head low against the wind, she crossed the street and walked through the apartment complex parking lot, heading straight for the building where the Watcher resided. In her mind, even after the past three months, he was still ‘the Watcher’, not ‘her Watcher’. Her Watcher had died in Los Angeles more than two years earlier. She refused to consider Spencer as anyone she had to protect; she worked alone. She went to him when she needed information, weapons or money, and that was about it.

Today, she needed money.

“Miss Summers. What a pleasant surprise.”

Tall enough that she had to look up to see his eyes, Spencer stepped aside to let her in. The tweed suit seemed to be the same one he had worn the last time she had come. His voice made it clear that he thought her visit was anything but pleasant, but she didn’t react to the sarcasm as she entered with a short, “Spencer”. They had had their fair share of arguments, which usually ended with Buffy leaving his apartment with a few well-chosen curses. She couldn’t do that today though, not if she expected to get her money.

“Would you care for some tea?” he offered, more inbred politeness than real desire to accommodate her, she was sure.

He always offered; she always refused. Today, she was frozen to the bone, though, and she accepted with a smile that bared her teeth. Spencer raised a surprised eyebrow at her but walked into his small kitchen, leaving her to sit in the living room. Arms resting over her knees and fingers clasped for warmth, she watched the grayish snow melt around her boots and stain the carpet. Once upon a life, she would have cared, maybe even apologized. But that Buffy was long gone.

“To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” Spencer called out from the kitchen. “Any out of the ordinary demonic activity? Signs on the Hellmouth?”

She hated the trace of hopefulness in his voice at that last word. Spencer couldn’t wait for this Hellmouth of his to open so that he could record in his fucking diaries whatever would happen. Sometimes, Buffy also hoped the damn thing would open– and swallow both Spencer and his books.

“I had a dream,” she replied, turning her face toward the kitchen but keeping her voice level. Immediately, Spencer appeared, a metal box forgotten in his hands as he watched her eagerly.

“A prophetic dream? What did you see? Is it the Hellmouth?”

Again, that word, that tone… Why didn’t it register with him that anything that started with ‘hell’ had to be of the bad?

“Hellmouth, yes, but not this one,” she replied, keeping her annoyance for the man as much at bay as she could. “Sunnydale.”

The disappointment on his face was clear, and it tinted his words too when he answered.

“Sunnydale is not your concern, Miss Summers. The Watcher there is in control of the situation.”

The water for the tea was boiling, the whistling of the teapot so shrill that it made Buffy grimace. She waited until Spencer had reappeared with two teacups before she continued. The porcelain was hot beneath her fingers, almost too much to bear, but she forced herself to keep the cup in her hands and to let the warmth seep in.

“After dreaming about it for five nights in a row, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be concerned,” she said, trying to keep the bite of her tone to a minimum. “I’m going.”

Spencer took a sip of his tea; his eyes were dark with disapproval. She was rather used to the look.

“Then why are you here, if my opinion counts so little for you?”

He knew, of course. And she knew he knew. But he was going to make her ask. Bastard.

“I need to get there as soon as possible.”

“I suppose you do,” he murmured in between two sips of tea. 

When he didn’t add anything, she sighed and stood, leaving the untouched cup of tea on the coffee table. 

“I need money to get there,” she snapped. 

If he was disturbed by the way she towered over him as he remained seated, he didn’t show it and continued to take slow swallows of tea.

“You know that’s not how it works,” he said at last, mildly chastising. “Any expense must be approved by the Council beforehand. And in this case, I trust they will want more details about your dream, so if you would…”

“Make up the details yourself,” she cut in harshly. “I’m leaving tomorrow. With or without your help. If it’s without, don’t expect to see me again.”

Stomping her feet maybe more than was strictly necessary, she stepped to the door, only stopping when Spencer called her name.

“Miss Summers.”

Fingers still gripping the handle, she turned to look at him.

“Where will you be patrolling tonight? In case the Council authorizes me to pay for this expense.”

He was playing with her, and she gritted her teeth not to yell at him. She knew he could have given her the money if he had wanted to. There was no need to call the Council. He was just yanking her chain, and she hated him for that. Just as much as she hated that she had needed to ask for that damn money in the first place.

“Erie Street,” she said blankly, and left without a goodbye. 

In truth, she hadn’t planned to patrol that night. Her ribs were still bruised from her last big fight, and she could have used some rest before getting to whatever was happening, or about to happen in Sunnydale. But saying as much would have prompted Spencer to ask how she had gotten hurt, and reprobation would have come soon after if she had admitted she hadn’t killed Spike yet. Worse, he might have put the dusting of the blond menace as a condition to giving her the money. She would kill him eventually, she had no doubts about that, just as she had no doubts that ultimatums wouldn’t help in the slightest.

*

Night fell too quickly, and it was barely past six when Buffy left her dingy efficiency apartment to walk down to Erie Street. The name had come first to her lips when Spencer had asked because it was one of the quietest graveyards in Cleveland – and the closest to where she lived. She didn’t like it much, though. The tombs were so old, many stones were broken or unreadable. With snow covering them, it was hard not to trip every other step. It was a sad place. Then again, she could take sad if it meant a quiet night.

As though summoned by her thoughts, a silhouette appeared just on the edge of her vision and she immediately tensed. Tranquility had just flown out of the window.

“Slayer.”

She didn’t respond to Spike. The bruises he had inflicted on her two nights earlier had finally got the lesson through that his word games served no purpose other than to distract her. Instead, she took off her gloves to get a firmer grip on her stake, and waited for him to attack.

“Not even a ‘good evening’, then?” he sneered. “Where are your manners?”

She wanted to tell him to shut up and get on with it, but by now she knew the chattering was simply part of how he fought, as much as that left hook she had to watch out for. At least he wasn’t ranting anymore about how she had killed the love of his unlife. 

Deciding she had waited long enough, she made the first move and attacked. He parried easily, and they fell once more in what she was sure, to an observer, would have looked like an odd but perfectly choreographed dance.

This was their seventh fight in three weeks – not that she was counting. It was also their sixth one since she had killed Drusilla. And they weren’t getting any closer to finishing the dance. 

There had been closed calls, on both sides, but neither had managed to finish the other yet, obviously. It infuriated Buffy, because she knew she fought better than he did. He was just lucky. Insanely lucky. They had been interrupted three times when she had had the advantage, and he had taken these opportunities to flee. There had been one time when they had started fighting late enough that Spike had given up with the approaching sunrise. And twice Buffy had chosen to retreat, including their last fight. Not this time, though. If she could snip this loose thread before leaving for Sunnydale…

“Really, Miss Summers.”

Spencer’s exasperated words rose in the night without warning and startled Buffy enough that she almost tripped over a headstone while evading a kick from Spike. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t get rid of him yet,” the Watcher continued, as though not noticing that she was in the middle of a fight and not particularly inclined to being lectured. “Didn’t you mention you had taken care of the matter?”

She shot him a nasty glare; Spike laughed, the sound as cold as the wind.

“Lied to the suit, did you? Or were you too optimistic when you said you’d taken care of me?”

With his last word, he sprung forward, feinting to kick on her right before punching her left side. She rolled with the blow to minimize the impact and was back to her feet instantly. Pain flared through her body but she kept the wince off her face.

“Miss Summers, if you would quit playing and stake this demon, we have to discuss your trip.”

Spike stopped moving at once and looked at her through eyes that were suddenly golden. 

“Trip?” he repeated flatly. “You’re not leaving town, are you, Slayer? Not before we end this.”

The fury of blows he unleashed on her doubled in intensity, and too many of them passed her defenses. He was taking the fight to the next level, and, still bruised, too cold and too tired, she wasn’t catching up. She realized that, and judging by Spike’s icy smirk, he could see it too. Spencer, for once, also seemed to have a clue.

“I’m beginning to think you want to go to California to escape evil, not fight it.”

“Will you shut the fuck up!” she snarled, sparing Spencer a loathing glance. Why didn’t he draw a map for Spike, while he was at it? “Get out of here before you get us both killed!”

At that moment, her rage was deeper against Spencer than Spike. She knew why Spike wanted to kill her; she had staked his girl, he wanted her dead, clear and obvious. But Spencer was simply being an asshole, distracting her, as though he couldn’t see that she needed all her attention not to end up as Spike’s third Slayer. Or maybe that was what he wanted. He would get a new Slayer, if she died, and maybe that one would listen to him. At least, he was walking away.

“You were really going to head out of town.” Spike’s eyes flashed with mixed anger and outrage. “You’re mine to kill, don’t you get that yet? You live on borrowed time and there’s no way…” 

He talked too much. He always talked too much. She cut him off with a spinning kick to the chest that sent him down in the snow. Immediately, she was on him, straddling him to keep him down, stake shooting toward his heart. He struck her hand at the last second and the piece of wood went flying, struck again and this time she was the one in the snow. Breathing hard, she jumped back to her feet and tried to find her stake, but it was nowhere in sight, probably buried in the snow. She hadn’t expected much action and had not taken a back-up stake. There weren’t any trees around for her to snap a branch and have a makeshift weapon. Spike on the other hand still had his; and both his eyes and fangs gleamed as he growled and slowly stood. She didn’t wait for him to attack; she retreated. She would dust him, in the end, but clearly not tonight.

Spencer’s tracks in the snow were easy to follow. Ignoring Spike’s shout behind her that she was a coward, ignoring the pain that lanced through her, she ran to the street, and caught up with the Watcher just as he was starting his car. She had to pound on the passenger door before he opened, but at least he didn’t hesitate and the car was speeding away as soon as she had jumped in.

“So, you flee in front of vampires, now, instead of killing them?” he asked on a conversational tone.

Her arms wrapped around her – she had had several bruised ribs before, but this time she thought at least two were broken – she ground her teeth and kept quiet.

“The Council agreed to your request,” he continued when she didn’t answer. “You will report to Rupert Giles while in California, and return to Cleveland as soon as the matter there is solved. I went to your apartment and gathered a few clothes. Your plane leaves in an hour.”

Somehow, she couldn’t summon the strength to be angry that he had snooped through her things, or that the pictures she kept beneath her mattress were now lost to her. Because it was clear to her that, whatever Spencer or the Council said, she wasn’t going to come back to Cleveland. She wasn’t coming back to confront Spike again. Let him come to her, to a battleground that she would make her own. And if walking away now meant that she was a coward, like Spike had said – she could live with that. The important thing was that she lived a little longer, and had another shot at taking him down.


	2. In which Spike worries someone might kill the Slayer before he does and takes steps to make sure it doesn’t happen.

It was only two hours after he reached Sunnydale that Spike got confirmation the Slayer was there. He had heard two vampires discuss the small blonde spitfire that had wrecked havoc on a party they had been having in the street. No doubt to have, it was just her style. He was a little relieved to have found her again. Her Watcher had mentioned California, and the first thing that had crossed Spike’s mind was that there was a Hellmouth there too. Two nights and a day of driving above speed limit still meant two nights and a day behind her. She could have gotten herself killed while he was catching up on her. Didn’t she get it, still? Her life was his to take. Drusilla had predicted as much.

The pain burned bright as his mind fluttered around the memory of his Princess, and he could see her again, her mouth open in surprise as the bloody Slayer plunged the stake into her chest. He fed the memory to the flames of his anger and pulled hard on his cigarette, wishing he had a bottle of scotch to indulge in.

It was his fault. He should have killed the Slayer the first time he had tried, instead of playing with her. Now though, he had a reason to play. She would beg for death long before he was done with her. Hell, she was already scared, if her running act was any indication. It didn’t matter, though, since he had found her again. Cleveland or Sunnydale, the only difference was that it wasn’t snowing here.

That, and the small detail that Sunnydale seemed to be run by vampires. Not a bad thing in itself, except that finding dinner revealed a bit tricky, with the humans hiding in their closets from the monsters they now knew existed. He finally found his luck by following his nose and the scent of marijuana; the sixties were long gone and he had little interest left for drugs, but if a nice buzz left an idiot too happy to be scared and run, who was he to complain?

His hunger appeased – at least for now, he had a feeling he’d get the munchies later – Spike set off to find the Slayer. In a town like this, with a proper Master from what he had heard, the chances were too high that a random vampire would off her before Spike could get to her. Better to find her now and get on with the program. Better to shorten the show than to have it stolen from him. 

Finding her was not all that complicated. After weeks of tracking her, he knew her scent as well as his own, and all he needed was to find the trail. Easier to do in Sunnydale than it had been in Cleveland. By midnight, he had found her in the middle of a cemetery, pummeling a newly risen vampire rather than using the stake at her waist or the crossbow slung behind her back.

He watched her until she was done; it was always good to study one’s enemy. He had done it for a few days before their first fight, watching and learning how she moved, how she struck, how she parried. Only when he had been satisfied that he knew her had he attacked. By then, Dru had shared her vision with him, promising him that the Slayer would be his to take. She had never said anything about her own death. He still couldn’t understand why she had gone to fight the Slayer when she was still weak from the incident in Prague; couldn’t understand either why she hadn’t believed her own prediction and had tried to kill the Slayer herself.

This train of thought never led anywhere; Spike had run through it often enough in the past weeks to know that. Usually, he drowned it in whatever alcohol he had at hand. This time, he put an end to it by finally advancing on the Slayer. Her back to him, she had a hand on her right side, cradling her ribs. Hurt, then. He filed the bit of knowledge in the ‘weaknesses’ bin, along with those easily pushed buttons of hers.

“You didn’t think you’d be able to hide from me, did you?”

She spun to face him, crossbow neatly sliding off her shoulder and into position in her hands, feet spread to have the best possible footing. For some reason, she relaxed when she saw him, just a little bit. Then she hit the trigger.

Spike had been ready, and he easily ducked as the slim piece of wood shot past him. An impact sound behind him caught his attention, and he turned just in time to see what remained of a vampire disperse into the wind.

“I wasn’t hiding,” Buffy said as he looked back at her, an eyebrow cocked appraisingly. Pure luck, or had she planned the shot? “I just found more interesting things to kill.”

Lighting a cigarette, he observed her through the smoke. She seemed almost relaxed as she reloaded the crossbow, yes, but it was no deeper than the surface. She was ready to shoot again if he took one step toward her, and waiting for him to do so. In his experience, she rarely waited long before tiring of listening to him, and she often left openings in that first round of attack.

“Really?” he sneered. “So you didn’t run away from me, two nights ago? My mistake. It really looked like you did.”

He had hit a nerve; the scar across her lips was twitching. He had put it there himself, using her own knife, marking her as his prey. Time to make good on that promise.

“You know what, Spike?” she spat, sliding the crossbow back onto her back and crossing her arms. “Attack, or fuck off. I’m not playing your games tonight.”

With that, the infuriating little minx had the nerve to turn her back on him and walk away.

“You think you can get away like this?” he called after her. “I could kill you right now. I could have you dead before you even knew I touched you.”

“You won’t,” she shot back above her shoulder. “It would be cheating.”

He laughed incredulously at that, and easily caught up with her.

“Cheating?” he repeated, standing in her way and forcing her to stop. With a shake of his head, he shifted to his demon features. “I’m a vampire, luv. Of course I cheat. Hell, every time I look like this—” His face rippled back to his human visage. “—I’m cheating.”

It never occurred to him, despite all his protests, that she was standing there, a foot in front of him, arms crossed and in no way ready to defend, and he wasn’t taking advantage of the situation as he was claiming he would.

For a few seconds, she remained silent, observing him through unreadable eyes. “You won’t kill me like this,” she finally said, her calm voice belying how fast her heart was beating, “because if you truly loved Drusilla like you claim – and I’m not saying I believe you, because demons can’t love – but if you really think you did, then her memory deserves a real fight when we’re both giving everything we have, not a random strike of luck when I’ve got other things to do.”

It was quite possibly the longest speech he had ever heard her make. An eyebrow arched, she seemed to dare him to say something. When he didn’t, she stepped past him, and he could only turn to watch her leave.

What pained him the most wasn’t that she was getting away and he wasn’t catching her again. Rather, it was that she was right. If she wasn’t going to fight with the best she had, it wasn’t worth it. It simply wasn’t enough. 

So he was back to his earlier dilemma. In a town like this, she might be dead before he had his shot, and that just wouldn’t do. If she wasn’t ready to give him the fight she owed him right now, he would have to make sure she survived long enough for him to take what was rightfully his.

*

Buffy hadn’t truly been surprised when Spike had showed up on her patrol earlier. Part of her had expected he would. Spencer had let it slip that she was off to California, and that was certainly enough for someone as tenacious as Spike. 

She hadn’t been surprised either when mentioning Drusilla had been enough to throw him in for a loop; it might be a dirty trick, but it had worked before, and she would use it again if needed. Spike wasn’t the only one who knew how to wield words as weapons.

She wasn’t even surprised when an hour or so after she had left him behind, she ran across him again. What did surprise her was the offer he made her.

“A truce?” she repeated, disbelieving. “What the hell do you mean, you want a truce?”

Judging by the way his mouth twisted, he wasn’t particularly fond of the idea, which made his offer even more suspicious.

“You were wrong when you said demons can’t love,” he said darkly. “But right that I want a true battle. I’ll kill you, but it has to be a fair fight.”

Even as he talked, she remained alert; she wouldn’t have put it past him to change his mind and decide that killing her, whatever the means or circumstances, was good enough.

“No need for a truce. Just stay away from me until I’m done with my business here.”

He exhaled a puff of blue-gray smoke toward her; she didn’t flinch.

“And if your ‘business’ gets you killed, what does that leave for me?” he practically growled. “Something’s brewing, something big, I’ve been here for half a night and already I can tell as much. And I won’t let anyone else snap that pretty neck of yours. You’re mine to kill, Dru foresaw it.” His face closed, as it always did when he pronounced his dead lover’s name. “So, truce. I help you with this fight, and then we have ours.”

There were few things that Buffy disliked as much as people thinking she was stupid. Did he really believe she would accept his offer and trust him to help, when of his own admission, he wanted to see her dead? It was a trick, of course, and she wasn’t going to fall for it. That didn’t mean she couldn’t pretend.

“Fine. Truce. You can start by taking care of these two.”

Indicating with a tilt of her head the two vampires that were trying to sneak up on them, she wondered if he would even pretend to hold up his end of the offer. He did roll his eyes and let out a barely audible sigh, but already was moving toward the two vamps. Shrugging, Buffy decided she didn’t need to watch and continued forward to leave the cemetery and go back to Rupert Giles’.

She hadn’t spent much time with the Watcher yet, but so far she liked him more than she did Spencer. For one thing, he hadn’t demanded to know why she had knocked on his door a full day after her plane had landed in Los Angeles. She wouldn’t have told him if he had asked; it wasn’t any of his business that she had dropped by her home to watch her parents from outside. After hours of standing guard, she had only seen her mom, and she was trying very hard not to wonder what that meant.

“I didn’t expect you to be back so soon,” Giles commented when she walked in. “Did you see enough?”

Walking further in, she slid the crossbow off her shoulder and rested it to the side of the couch before sitting down. “I wanted to get a feel for the town, I’ve got it, now I’m ready to attack. I just need to know where.”

Taking off his glasses, Giles sat down across from her. He seemed tired but hopeful.

“The Master made his lair in an old club on the outskirts of town. That might be a good place to start.”

“You know where he is and you haven’t taken him down yet?” 

“We tried,” the Watcher defended himself. “But without a Slayer, we didn’t…”

Buffy stood, immediately reaching for the crossbow. Checking the position of the arrow and that the safety was still on were things she did without a second thought. “Well, I’m here now. Just show me the place.”

She was actually a little surprised that he hadn’t led her to that lair as soon as she had arrived in town; that was what Spencer had done when she had first arrived in Cleveland, later claiming that he needed to know what he was working with exactly. She had never felt as much as a weapon as she had that day.

“I… I’d suggest patience,” Giles said on a tone that was half commanding, half pleading. “A few local students work with me on hunting vampires, and their help might be useful to us. We can talk to them tomorrow, and go to the lair in the evening when…”

“I don’t work well with others,” she cut in abruptly. “Now tell me where this club is before I start getting testy.”

It was her best hard look, the one that always got her what she wanted, and Giles did seem to fidget under it. But then he shook his head and slid his glasses back on.

“As much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, Miss Summers, I have to remind you that I am, for the time being and as per the Council’s orders, your Watcher, and I would ask you to treat me as such.”

She snorted at that. “If I did, I would already have thrown you across the room and gotten that information out of you. Want me to try that?”

By the way Giles swallowed hard, he believed her threat, even though it was – slightly – exaggerated. Nonetheless, he stood his ground.

“Morning will be on us fast,” he said calmly. “Do you really want to rush alone into a lair that must hold at this hour between thirty and forty vampires, all of them well fed and alert?”

As much as she hated to admit it, the Watcher had a point, and she conceded it with a slight inclination of her head. “What do you suggest, then?” she asked, gritting her teeth.


	3. In which Spike comes across old friends (not really) and makes a couple of new ones (not really either).

Finding the town’s Master was easier than Spike would have thought. All he had to do was follow some clueless vamps, who led him straight to what seemed to be a club. It didn’t seem that security was a big issue for this clan. Then again, they might not know yet that there was a new Slayer in town. They would figure that out soon enough.

Spike had seen lairs such a this one before, with caged humans, bodies abandoned here and there and vampires simply celebrating the night in any way they wanted, but it had never been in such an open setting. He entered the place without anyone questioning him, and he had gone through most of the club, mapping it out in his head, before someone stopped him as he was about to push a curtain and enter a room on the side.

“You’re not one of us,” the vamp said, pressing his hand flat on Spike’s chest to stop him. Spike didn’t reply and only glared until the hand had dropped. As much assurance as the young man projected, he was only a fledgling. A favored one, maybe, but young, no more than a year old, Spike would have bet. Few of the vampires in the club seemed any older. It would make things far simpler when it was time to fight.

“I’m new in town,” he said, taking one last drag on his fag and blowing smoke in the kid’s face. Flicking the stub to the floor, he made a point to hit the vamp’s boot with it. “’Thought I’d pay my respect to the resident Master.”

The vampire’s face darkened dangerously. “He’s not taking visits. And you’d better leave our territory before I…”

“Xander?”

The vamp – Xander, was it? What kind of name was that? – turned toward the curtain. A red-haired girl had pulled it open just enough to peek through.

“The Master says he will talk to him.”

She indicated Spike with a tilt of her head. Her mouth was a thin red line that said she wasn’t too happy with the message she was delivering. Neither was Xander, if Spike was to judge by the glowering look the boy gave him.

“You heard her,” he said with a tight smile that held no warmth and gestured toward the closed curtain. 

Spike nodded, but he knew better than to leave his back exposed like this. “After you.”

Xander grimaced but he walked in, his back tense in anticipation of an attack; Spike followed, wondering what he would find. 

Whatever he had expected, discovering his own line’s Master, old batty himself, had not been part of it. He hadn’t given a second thought to the supposedly founder of his line in decades, not since Darla had abandoned Drusilla and him to return to her Sire.

The pain of thinking of Dru was a brief flash of blinding heat that reminded him of his purpose. He was here to play an act, gather information that would keep the Slayer safe until he was ready to kill her himself. The act required him to play by the rules, even if he didn’t care much for them. And so he gracefully put one knee to the ground, receiving a light nod in reply, his cue to stand again.

Even seated as he was in a leather armchair, the Master had a commanding look about him that Spike remembered well; it was the look of someone who was not used to have anything or anyone stand in his way for long. Spike wasn’t sure whether that meant the fight would be easier or more difficult. 

“William. How… unexpected.”

Spike struggled to keep the grimace off his face as he replied. “Spike, if you please Master.”

A slow smile pulled at the distorted features of the Master. “Yes, of course. How silly of me to have forgotten. Spike, the slayer of Slayers. And with manners, now, it seems.”

Spike accepted the jab with a tight smile of his own. Their last encounter had been a bit more… tense – and a lot more painful on Spike’s side when he hadn’t demonstrated enough respect for his elder.

“But without the seer,” the Master continued after a second, his voice turning to a mix of disappointment and puzzlement. On each side of him, Xander and Red listened intently, trying to understand what was going on.

“Drusilla is dead.”

The words tasted like ashes and Spike’s throat was tightening, as were his fists. Beyond the grief, he could see now how it had been a mistake to walk in like this, without knowing what or who would greet him. If he had done his research, he might have had a story ready about Drusilla’s death. Explaining that a Slayer had killed her would only lead to questions about who this Slayer was, and that wasn’t a place where Spike wanted to tread. He needn’t have worried though; the Master didn’t ask.

“I see. I cannot say I am surprised to hear it. If anything, I am surprised she lived so long. Certainly, the credit goes to you.”

With a nod, Spike accepted the praise and its underlying condemnation; if he had kept Drusilla alive for so long, he was also to blame for not preventing her death. He had repeated this truth to himself often enough.

“So, what brings you to our beautiful town?” the Master asked on a jovial tone, sweet as honey laced with poison. “A return to your clan, maybe?”

“I can’t say I knew you were here before I passed that curtain,” Spike admitted with a shrug. “Heard of a Hellmouth, thought I’d look for a bit of fun.”

“Of course. You’re quite welcome to stay with us, if you wish. You know I take care of mine.” The exposed fangs might have been a grin. “Which reminds me… Willow dear, why don’t you go play with the puppy for a while. It wouldn’t do to have him feel neglected, now, would it?”

The redhead was practically beaming when she took the key proffered by the Master before going to the back of the room. Xander followed her instants later after a nod from the Master, leaving Spike and him alone.

“This town is mine,” he said, his tone far less pleasant now as he stood. Behind him, in the room where Willow and Xander had disappeared, agonized cries started to rise. “As long as you understand this, William, you and I will get along just fine. But if you cross me…” He tilted his head back toward the shouting, giving the appearance of listening intently. “Let’s just say that I’m sure Willow wouldn’t mind a new play thing. She hasn’t said anything, sweet little thing that she is, but I think she’s getting bored of Angelus.”

Spike didn’t react to the threat. He couldn’t afford to react to it. Reacting would mean that he had something to hide, and it would be as bad as simply admitting he was, albeit temporarily, fighting alongside the Slayer. 

“The town is yours,” he replied calmly. “I’ve got no problem with that. I trust that I am free to hunt?” On the Master’s nod, he continued. “I don’t plan on being here very long in any case. Just visiting.”

The old bat seemed about to say something, but finally kept his mouth shut. 

Gesturing toward the back of the room, Spike asked, “Can I?” and was granted permission with a benevolent wave of the Master’s hand. He walked there without hurrying, taking note that no guards were protecting the Master now that Xander was otherwise occupied. Overconfidence.

As he entered the back room, he remained next to the door and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms as he observed the proceedings. He hadn’t truly believed the Master when he had mentioned Angelus, and yet, there he was, both Spike’s eyes and sense of smell were saying as much. Willow was sitting astride his hips, and laughing as Angelus shouted every time she let a lit match fall upon his chest.

“He tried to take down the Master, a couple of months back,” Xander commented idly from the other side of the door, his eyes never leaving the scene in front of them. “He was working with humans, of all things. He even killed his own Sire.”

Spike startled at that and gave Xander a fleeting glance, speaking without thinking. “He dusted Darla? Didn’t think the bastard had it in him.”

Having seen enough, Spike returned to the Master. What he had just witnessed had left him strangely indifferent. He had his own reasons to be angry with Angelus, but this kind of torture wasn’t really his thing, and he had found no particular enjoyment in it. Still, he could pretend with the best of them.

“Nice show,” he complimented the Master. “Your girl’s a treat.”

“She is, isn’t she?” the Master said almost fondly. “Vicious little thing. You should see her kill.” He paused, giving Spike a long, weighing look. “I am giving a small… party, of sorts, the night after next. Come, if you are still in town. It will be a night to remember for centuries.”

Inclining his head, Spike murmured thanks at the invitation, and filed away the bit of knowledge. If the Slayer had come all this way, it had to be to fight something big. This seemed like just the thing.

“Sunrise will come soon,” the Master noted. “Why don’t you stay with us today. You can tell me more about these Slayers you killed, and I will tell you how I plan to forever change the way we feed.”

Spike wasn’t really of a mind to do either, but refusing now would have been too much of an offense, and he didn’t want to make an enemy of the Master – at least not quite yet.

*

The more she thought about it, the more Buffy regretted having listened to Giles. She was the Slayer; he was a librarian. What did he now about making plans and deciding when to attack?

She had gone to his school to meet the students who supposedly fought with him – children, all of them! And the atmosphere of the school had been creepy, everybody looking as though they expected vampires to come out of the nearest locker, no matter that it was the middle of the day. She had quickly had too much of it and had left the school, intending to walk through the town and get a better sense of its layout. Knowing her battleground was key; it had been one of her very first lessons.

Nightfall finally came, and Buffy started to return toward the school when she came across two vamps chasing a human. They had the girl huddling on the ground, and she would be dead soon unless Buffy intervened. She happily did, striding toward the scene with determination. After a day of restless recon, a couple of dustings would be just what she needed.

“Look, Xander,” the female vamp drawled, taking the male’s attention off the easy prey at his feet. “This one doesn’t even try to run.”

“Indeed. It might be just the kind of fun you wanted, Wil.”

He was already vamped out when he looked toward Buffy, grinning as though he knew a joke she didn’t. She had seen the look on many vampires’ faces right before she dusted them. They never seemed to take her seriously until she started kicking their sorry asses. Spike was the exception; from their first fight, he had always been ready for her, even when he taunted her or made stupid jokes.

The female started walking toward Buffy, but before she had taken more than a couple of steps, the girl on the ground cried out.

“Thank God, Buffy! You’ve got to help me, this is hell, we have to make things right again!”

A quick look assured Buffy that she had no clue who the girl was, apart from a big fan, certainly. The two vamps however seemed interested to hear who _she_ was. 

“So that’s the Slayer?” the male snickered. “That little thing?”

“She doesn’t look very impressive,” the female agreed. “Spike made it sound like epic battles, but if they’re all like that they can’t be very hard to kill.”

Buffy took the comment in stride; these vamps knew Spike, and he had told them about killing Slayers. So much for his so-called truce. 

She was finally about to reach the female when a van flew out of nowhere and came to a halt in the fury of screeching tires.

Within seconds, it was over. The two vamps had fled, leaving behind a babbling almost-victim that was clinging to Giles and a rather peeved Buffy who wished she hadn’t looked away and dusted them instead. She could have tracked them, but she let herself be convinced to return to the library and hear what the girl, Cordelia, had to say exactly, and why she was both so surprised and relieved that Buffy was there.

As it turned out, Cordelia was nuts. There was no other way to explain her ramblings about making a wish in another universe with another Sunnydale and a different Buffy.

“Can we get back on track here?” Buffy finally snapped at Giles, having heard enough. “You were supposed to tell me where to find the Master. Or I could just go out and find him myself!”

“Or you could let the Master come to you,” a sweet voice said from the top floor of the library.

“Or in this case, the Master’s hands,” a second voice added, this one male. 

Cordelia shrieked as she took several steps backward and away from the two vamps from earlier, who were now accompanied by Spike. Giles cursed quietly; he had, after all, left guards outside. Buffy merely reached for her crossbow on the table and aimed it up at Spike. Before firing, she couldn’t help it, she had to let him know she had never fallen for his trick.

“I knew that truce thing was just a trap.”

The two other vamps exchanged a look at that, then both turned to face Spike; they were dust the very next second.

“You were saying, Slayer?” he asked, leaning against the railing, a stake in each hand.

Taken aback, Buffy lowered her crossbow – just barely – but didn’t take her gaze off Spike. Behind her, Cordelia sounded like she was ready to have a nervous breakdown.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Xander! And Willow! Spike killed Xander and Willow! This isn’t hell. It’s worse than hell. It’s worse than anything I could have imagined. I so have to get out of here. Giles! You got to make things right again! Fix this world!”

But Giles had stopped listening. His eyes were going from Spike to Buffy, and he was muttering under his breath. The only thing Buffy understood was a slightly exasperated question. “What the hell is going on?”

Buffy could have asked the very same thing.


	4. In which Spike is bored and Buffy thinks in circles.

The Slayer’s little friends bored Spike rather quickly.

First, there was the brunette who had been almost hysterical ever since Spike had dusted the Master’s pets. Of all strange things, she knew Spike’s name, although he was quite sure he had never crossed path with her before. Annoying as she was, she wouldn’t have survived a previous encounter. Her ramblings about wishes coming true and a world that wasn’t quite what it was supposed to be were particularly irritating.

Then there were the kids who had stood guard outside. Spike had told Willow and Xander he’d deal with them, suspecting that the Slayer would consider their deaths a breach of their truce. They had returned a few minutes after Spike had made his grand entrance, all of them rubbing at the back of their heads where Spike had knocked them out, all glaring at him. Didn’t they see he had saved their sorry lives?

There was also the Watcher, who was trying to get information from everyone at once and had looked ready to have an apoplexy attack when the Slayer reluctantly told him about her truce with Spike. He kept throwing looks at Spike up on the mezzanine, and if some of them spelled his uneasiness at being near a vamp, there was also the promise of violence hiding behind those too often polished glasses.

And there was the Slayer herself. Spike couldn’t understand what she was doing, delaying the attack like this. He could lead her to the Master’s lair, he had told her as much, and she still wasn’t moving, listening instead to the hysterical girl’s ramblings and answering the Watcher’s questions in as few words as possible, which meant he asked more questions.

Definitely the most mind-numbing ten minutes Spike had ever lived through. He had to repeat to himself that he wouldn’t need to play nice for long, and that soon enough he and the Slayer would be back to doing what they did best – fight. If he was lucky, the Master and that insane plan of his to harvest humans’ blood was the reason why she was in Sunnydale in the first place, and she’d have nothing left to distract her once the Master’s lair was cleared. It would be a challenge for her, he realized, but she was a good fighter, and he was determined to help her survive the battle. Her life was his to take, and he would see to it that she lost it when he decided the time was right. Nothing else would be sufficient to honor Drusilla.

*

“Again, it’s too risky, Miss Summers, and as your Watcher I cannot…”

“I thought,” Buffy interrupted Giles, her voice raised to overpower his, “that I had made it clear I don’t give a damn about that. You’re here to put your nose in your books, give me intel, weapons, and record in your diary how many vamps I dust. Anything else is out of your league.”

A snicker descended from the mezzanine; Buffy ignored it and pushed her way past Giles and into the book cage where the glint of metal had caught her eye. He tried to stop her with a hand on her arm, but quickly let go when she glared at him.

“You want intel?” he asked, clearly exasperated. “Here it is. You made a truce with a vampire whose claim to fame was to kill two Slayers…”

“One in China a hundred years ago or something,” she cut in again, “and one in New York three years before I was born. Tell me something I don’t know. Like why all Watchers seem to think the only appropriate weapons are those that belong in a museum.”

Shaking her head at his arsenal, she walked out of the book cage with only a couple more stakes tucked into her belt. She shifted her shoulder blades as she walked toward the staircase, feeling the familiar weight of the crossbow on her back, and eyed Spike warily. He was still leaning on the railing, but he had put away his stakes and lit a cigarette. He straightened up as she reached the upper level and gave her a bored look.

“Done talking, then?”

She stared at him blankly. He had been rather vocal in his demands that she accompany him to the lair he had discovered, and despite her own itch to fight she had taken her time to join him. If he thought he could give her orders, he was in for a surprise. She may pretend to accept his help in dusting a few vamps until he revealed this whole truce thing was a trap, but the cooperation on her part stopped right there.

Once he had started scowling, she gave a short nod. “Lead the way.”

For a brief instant, his eyes dropped to the stake tucked at the front of her belt and his lips pinched his cigarette more tightly. He didn’t say a word, nor did he look bothered when he presented her with his back. Buffy knew better than to think he trusted her any more than she trusted him, though.

“Miss Summers, please.”

Spike kept walking toward the back of the stacks as though certain she would follow. Buffy was about to do just that but a quick look down revealed something she hadn’t anticipated. She had thought Giles would be angry at her refusal to cooperate; instead he looked worried. She hadn’t seen such a look since she had lost her first Watcher.

“Are you sure it is wise to trust this demon?” he asked, clearly reining in his temper.

“I never said I trusted him,” Buffy replied with a tight smile. Her eyes fell on Cordelia and she indicated her with a tilt of her head. “Take her home.” 

The poor girl had sat down and taken her head between her hands. She was muttering to herself and seemed ready to lose her mind, if it wasn’t already too late for that. What had she expected would happen, claiming that she had come from a world in which vampires did not rule Sunnydale, and where the two vamps Spike had dusted had been her friends?

“And then if you want to help…” 

She eyed Giles and the students around him critically. The Watcher was probably more suited to research than combat, and Spike had taken down all three of his little helpers with probably no effort at all; what help could they be in a fight? Yet they seemed to stand straighter under her gaze, waiting for instructions. She wasn’t used to working with anyone, even having a Watcher around was often more trouble than it was worth. But these four seemed like they wanted to help, and after all, they had looked over the town longer than she had. She supposed they had a right to be there.

“Come to the club after you drop her off,” she sighed, rolling her eyes both at herself and at them. “Stay outside, catch any vamp that might escape.”

There were a couple of nods. Giles’ eyes remained straight on her, heavy and demanding. She could feel them still as she walked away, his parting, “Be careful, Buffy”, remaining unanswered.

She followed the cigarette smoke outside through a window and found Spike waiting for her, looking even more annoyed than before. Any second now he would start pouting like a child. She almost smiled at the image but made sure to keep her features smooth. Spike had proved particularly good at finding and exploiting weaknesses. 

“If you’re that much in a hurry,” she said before he could complain, “you could have gone and cleaned that nest by yourself.”

He snorted, giving her a disbelieving look. “I said I’d help, not that I’d do all your dirty work. What’s next? Washing your knickers?”

She didn’t reply to that. The best thing to do with Spike, she had quickly discovered, was often to ignore him.

They walked fast, side by side but with enough room between them to prevent any accidental contact. Buffy kept glancing at him from the corner of her eye, almost expecting him to attack. He had finished his cigarette and lit another one. She couldn’t help wondering if it was a sign that he was nervous, just like her reaching back to touch her crossbow was. She tried to force herself to stop; she couldn’t afford to give any hint that she was nervous. And it wasn’t like she had a reason to be anyway. She had taken many nests in the past year, this was just one more to add to the list. 

“We’re close,” were the first words Spike said, and they startled Buffy out of her thoughts. 

She chided herself for letting him surprise her, if only with words. He didn’t seem to notice though.

“Last night there were about thirty vamps in there, maybe forty,” he said offhandedly. “It’s early still, so a lot of them will be out and hunting. They’re fledglings, most of them, and they shouldn’t give you much trouble. The two I dusted earlier were the Master’s favorites, probably some of the most dangerous.”

“What about this Master?” she asked, easing a stake out of her belt.

“Pretty strong. Old. You’ll recognize him when you see him.”

Something in Spike’s voice made that statement almost mocking – for the Master, Buffy realized, not for her. The memory of the dreams that had led her to Sunnydale resurfaced. In her mind, the vampire stood in front of a crowd, raising a glass filled with blood and gesturing toward caged humans. Could it be the same vamp?

“Pointy teeth and ears, really ugly, wrinkly vamp face, nails three inches long?”

Spike turned his face to look at her, an eyebrow raised high. “You know old batty, then?”

She shrugged, unwilling to share too much about her dreams. The less her enemies knew about her, the better, and Spike knew too much already. “I know I’ve got to get rid of him. Is that it?”

She indicated with a nod what could have been a warehouse if not for the blasting music and neon lights. Spike stopped walking and nodded. 

“That’s it. You want to slide in through the back and do it the stealthy way or…”

She kept walking, which she supposed he took as his answer. When he caught up with her, he had gotten rid of his cigarette and instead had a stake in each hand.

For the last couple of hundred yards as they approached the entrance, and the unsuspecting vampires beyond, Buffy had time to wonder if she was walking straight into a trap. From the start, she had told herself that Spike’s offer for a truce was nothing more than a trick. And yet she was striding into battle next to him, blindly believing, or at least appearing to blindly believe, what he had told her was waiting past the club’s entrance. 

A cold bead of sweat ran between her shoulder blades at the realization. What had Spike done to deserve her trust, even in as limited an amount as she was granting him? He had killed those two vampires in the library, certainly, but that hardly proved anything. He wanted her dead, she knew that, he had said it and proved it often enough. She couldn’t afford to forget it. She couldn’t afford to forget the look on his face when she had killed Drusilla in front of him. She had known, at that instant, that he wouldn’t stop until one of them was dead. Even this truce of his wasn’t a stop to his vengeance, it was merely a detour according to the reasons he had given.

If she had been cruel, she would have told him he was the reason why Drusilla was dead. The vampire had been rambling when she had come to fight Buffy, her words all but incomprehensible except for a single idea she had reiterated ad nauseam. She had come to fight Buffy to keep Spike safe, repeating that he was hers and she wouldn’t let Buffy touch him. It sounded a far cry from what Spike often said, that his girl had predicted he would kill Buffy. Why he believed it, Buffy couldn’t fathom. Just like she couldn’t understand why she believed him now.


	5. In which there is a fight (no, not their fight quite yet).

The Slayer favored her crossbow. Even when she had stakes at hand, her first move was for the weapon strapped to her back. The way it slid easily into her hands told of a familiarity that went beyond that of a favorite weapon. She trusted the crossbow, relied on it in a way that other fighters might rely on a partner. It could have been a weakness, had she not been able to sling it back behind her when hand-to-hand fighting rendered it useless.

It wasn’t anything new to Spike, but to walk into a fight standing at her side rather than being her adversary, or even a non-participating witness, gave him a new perspective on what he had already observed. He had watched her fight from a distance before he had approached her in Cleveland, and he had been on the receiving side of those high kicks and punches more than once. But this angle was unique, and even as he summarily dusted the vampires that were foolish enough to stand in his way, he took full advantage of the opportunity to study her fighting technique. He would kill her, there was no doubt whatsoever in his mind about it, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t add to his knowledge of how she moved and fought.

The position by her side gave him an unprecedented view also on how many risks she took. If he hadn’t known any better, he could have believed that she was trying to get herself killed so that she would rob him of what was rightfully his. She was fighting too well for that however; if she had been suicidal, it would have been easier, consciously or not, to strike just a little slower, to jump not quite far enough out of a tenacious vamp’s reach. No, this wasn’t a deliberate attempt on her part to get hurt. It was just the way she fought when surrounded by two and a half dozen enemies.

If he had been paying any attention to the way _he_ fought, Spike would have realized he was taking as many risks and leaving as many openings as she was.

When he had first stepped in alongside her, he had noticed the confused looks some of the vampires had thrown at him. They had caught on to the game pretty quickly however, and there were now shouts of ‘traitor’ as they lunged at him. Fledglings, all of them, or close enough to it that it didn’t make much of a difference. Maybe the Slayer would have managed to clean off the lair without his help, maybe he could have just taken a step back and watched her without doing any of the dusting himself, but it was more fun this way.

He almost didn’t see the Master before it was too late.

The old bastard had to have heard that something was going on, and Spike could imagine him striding out of his ‘chambers’, ready to call his precious Xander and Willow to report to him before understanding who the girl decimating his clan was.

Caught up in his own fight, Spike’s eyes left the Slayer for a minute, no more than that he was sure; when he looked at her again, the Master was striking at her face with two blows, one right after the other, that seemed to stun her. The next second, the Master’s hands were cupping her cheeks in a deceptively gentle gesture. Spike had seen him kill that way, twisting his victim’s neck and breaking it off in an instant. That instant had never seemed as long as when Spike rushed to the two of them, plunging his stake through the Master’s back.

For a moment, Spike thought he had missed the heart. The immediate turning to dust part of a staking wasn’t happening. But slowly, too slowly, the Master crumbled, leaving behind a skeleton. Spike frowned at the bones at his feet, wondering whether all old vamps left that part of themselves behind. He had never heard about it before.

The disappearance of the Master had the consequence that a few of the vampires who had witnessed it ran away, almost tripping over each other in their haste to leave, while a handful remained frozen and incredulous. Spike didn’t pay them much attention though as he returned his eyes to the Slayer. She hadn’t moved save for bringing a hand to her cheek, where one of the Master’s nail had cut her and left a hint of blood. She still looked dazed, and it occurred to Spike at that instant that it would be easy to take her now. The fight here was over, or just about, so technically the truce he had offered her did not need to last any longer. He wouldn’t twist her neck as the Master had been about to do; he would take her blood and savor every mouthful. For Dru, but also for himself.

Except… If he did it now, he would always wonder whether she had still been stunned by the Master’s attack or whether he had bested her in a fair fight. He had two glorious battles etched in his memory already, two fights to the death that he had won on his own merits. This one would be the same.

“Well?” he demanded harshly. “You going to stand there all night or finish the job?”

The words seemed to bring her back to her senses and she snapped her head up, staring at him for a second before she spun to face an approaching attacker. She had lost her stake while fighting the Master but she pulled another one from inside her jacket’s sleeve. Satisfied that she would survive against minions, Spike turned to his own future victims.

*

The air felt thick with dust, and Buffy wasn’t sure whether she was imagining it or whether she was indeed breathing in the thirty odd demons she had dusted. Or rather, the demons she and Spike had dusted. As much as she remained suspicious of his help, she could concede that he had not merely stood by and watched her work. He had taken down his fair share of the vampires, and even now he was finishing off a couple of them on the club’s stage.

He didn’t need her help, she decided, and turned her back on that fight to explore the club. She had freed a couple of humans, some of them so weak they had stumbled on their way out; there might be more to set free in other rooms. There might also be some vamps left, hiding and waiting for her to leave before coming out.

Holding her stake firmly in one hand, she advanced cautiously, making sure her boots made as little noise as possible. The sounds from Spike’s fight faded as she stepped past a heavy velvet curtain and found herself in what seemed to be a throne room, if the heavy chair in its center was any indication.

For a few seconds, her thoughts returned to the Master and the feel of his hands framing her face. It had been a close call, much too close for comfort. That she owed her life to Spike left a bitter taste on her tongue that had nothing to do with the dust in the air.

With a shake of his head, she chased the thought away; Spike had helped her – saved her – to have the chance to kill her himself, and she refused to feel anything even remotely close to gratitude toward him.

There was an open door at the back of the room and Buffy approached it, still as silent and vigilant as possible. Slipping in, she lowered her raised stake when realizing that, other than her, the only person in was locked in a cell and chained to a wall. The man was shivering as she inspected the area. 

“Buffy.”

Her name, breathed no louder than a murmur, brought her attention back to the chained man. His eyes seemed to focus a little more when they met hers, almost as though he recognized her.

“It's you,” he murmured, his voice rough. “I mean... you don't remember. How could you?”

More crazy talk. There had been Cordelia earlier that night, and now this guy. She was beginning to think there was something in Sunnydale’s water that made people say strange things.

“How did you know my name?” she demanded, standing behind the cell’s door.

From hopeful, the man’s features fell into exhausted. “I waited. I waited here for you. But you never... I was supposed to help you.”

Snorting, Buffy kicked at the padlocked door. It flung open with a resounding clash of metal on metal and she strode in.

“You were gonna help me,” she huffed. “Funny how everybody wants to help me since I’ve come to this town. Giles, his kids, now you. Even…”

“Spike.”

His face rippled to that of a vampire when he spat out the name, and Buffy took an involuntary step back. She had been about to free the guy and hadn’t even imagined for a second that he might be a demon. What was wrong with her? Couldn’t she use common sense anymore?

The sharp click of a lighter being opened and the rising scent of cigarette smoke had Buffy glance behind her to the vampire she knew was there.

“You know him?” she asked, tilting her head toward the chained up vamp.

“Yeah,” Spike replied in an exhalation of blue smoke, his eyes flicking from the other vamp to Buffy.

“Why is he chained up?” she asked when he didn’t add anything.

He shrugged. “From what I heard, he tried to play for your side.” His lips curled up on a cruel smile. “A bit like me,” he snickered. “Except that he meant it. Wanker.”

Looking back at the vamp on the floor, but more on her guards than ever with Spike at her back, Buffy considered the pitiful creature. Held captive by his own kind, even tortured if those marks just peaking out from where his shirt hung loose were burns. He was now glaring at Spike for all he was worth, but not moving a muscle, as though he couldn’t manage to do as much.

“What should I do with him?” she wondered aloud, flexing her hand over her stake.

Spike answered her with a surprised half-laugh. “You asking me?” 

Blinking, she faced him again and fought the heat that tried to rise in her cheeks. “Of course not,” she denied immediately. “I was just thinking out loud.”

The look he gave her was almost mocking. “Right. Thinking out loud. I can do that too.” His features hardened as he returned his eyes to the other vamp, who slowly stood as Spike approached. “This bastard’s name is Angelus. I used to call him my sire. He didn’t make me a vamp, but he made me the vamp I am. Made Dru what she was, too. It’s his fault my princess was completely batty.”

For a brief moment, Spike’s voice had softened, taking hints of reverence when he mentioned Drusilla. But the weakness didn’t last, and the rigidity Buffy was more familiar with came back in the way he stood, in the swing of his fist into Angelus’ stomach, in the growled words he spat as he walked out of the cell.

“Know what, Slayer? I don’t give a damn what you do with him. Just get on with it.”

Buffy watched him go until he had disappeared before turning her frown back to Angelus. An arm curled around his body where Spike had struck him, he watched her with urgent eyes.

“You mustn’t trust him,” he said almost feverishly. “Spike killed Slayers before you, all he want is your blood.”

She let out a cold laugh at that warning. “Who said I trusted him?” Her eyes cold, she considered him thoughtfully. “Who said I trusted any vampire?”


	6. In which Spike delays things a little longer while Buffy wants it all to finally end.

Sitting on what had been the Master’s throne, one leg thrown over the arm of the high-backed chair, Spike was lazily pulling on his cigarette. His narrowed eyes remained on the entrance to the back room as he waited for the Slayer to come out.

She had seemed confused by the idea that Angelus played on her side, and Spike found it a little amusing. It fit with the whole Slayer image that she would believe in a world where white and black precluded any other color. As for him, Spike swore by red. Preferably blood red.

From where he now sat, he had a feeling that blood would flow soon. The town was interesting in itself, being situated over a hellmouth, but there was more than that to consider. There was the fact that vampires had ruled the nights long enough here that people were scared, genuinely, in that primal fashion that spiced up their blood before it was even shed. There was also Spike’s upcoming lack of purpose. 

He had once lived to make his Princess happy, dancing with her between cities and continents amongst dresses of the finest silk, porcelain dolls with perfect smiles and the blood of whoever struck her fancy. Then his role had been to take care of her, nurse her back to health after that bloody debacle in Prague. He had brought her to Cleveland thinking that Slayer blood might help her be strong again. From that, he had become her avenger, and soon that part would be played out too. 

What next? Roaming and killing alone held no attraction, not after decades of doing it with a lover. Maybe this little town was his answer. He had already gotten rid of the Master, all Spike needed now was to pick up the shreds of his empire and make them his own.

After all, he had earned that title for himself, two times over. And he would soon earn it once more, with one more kill.

When the Slayer finally walked out, she still had a stake clenched in her hand. Spike’s gaze lingered over the piece of wood as she approached and he half-wondered if there was any new dust clinging to it. Had she staked Angelus or not? The bastard wasn’t behind her, but that didn’t prove anything one way or the other. She could have left him chained in his cell. Or he could have left through another door to avoid any further confrontation.

And Spike really didn’t give a damn either way.

“Weird coincidence that you’d find someone you knew here,” the Slayer commented dryly, her tone making it clear that she didn’t believe in such coincidences. “Especially someone from your… what is it? Clan? Family?”

Blowing a ring of smoke in her direction, Spike stood lithely. “You don’t know the half of it,” he snorted. “The Master I dusted before he could kill you?”

Her flinch was so light it was hard to notice, but Spike did, and reveled in it.

“He made the bitch who made Angelus,” he continued, and took a couple of steps toward her. “Family, if you want to call it that. I don’t.”

She didn’t move again, merely raised her chin a little higher when he came closer, but a tightening at the corner of her eyes incited Spike to prod what his instincts wanted to call a weakness.

“Speaking of which… where’s yours? There wasn’t anyone for you in Cleveland except for piece of tweed, and no one here either save for that other one. Did your family sell you to the cause? I’ve heard—“

“Shut up.”

Her voice was ice, her eyes even colder. Her hand curled tighter on the stake as she walked past him and back into the club itself, the curtain swinging behind her. Grinning to himself, Spike followed. It had been a blind shot, but he had struck her where it hurt. One more advantage for him in their coming fight, if he played his cards right.

“Ever been betrayed by a parent?” he threw after her, and she stopped dead in her tracks. It was almost too easy.

She turned slowly toward him, her eyes calmer but still as cold.

“Betrayed?” she repeated, the tone dangerously soft. “You mean, like that Angelus guy betrayed you by playing for my side? That kind of betrayed?”

The attack, perpetrated with no more than a few quiet, almost caressing words, struck Spike speechless. He had been playing with her, with her mind, thinking he could weaken her mentally by striking the right chords. He had never expected her to be able to wield the same weapon.

“The truce is over,” she announced after a few seconds, her feet sliding apart to widen her stance into a defensive position. “I came here for this Master of yours and now he’s dead. Let’s get on with it.”

Spike flicked what remained of his cigarette to the floor in front of her and considered her thoughtfully. He wanted her dead at that moment with the same burning rage that had consumed him when he had seen Drusilla falling to ashes only a few yards in front of him. He didn’t like the realization that she could play with words so well, despite using them sparingly most of the time; he didn’t like either having to admit to himself that there were still parts of her he didn’t know. She was his prey. He could predict her movements, could guess new weaknesses from a simple look. She wasn’t supposed to be able to surprise him. She wasn’t supposed to see through him so easily either.

He launched the first attack, not really trying to hit her yet, just getting into the swing of things. She parried his fist, as he had expected she would, and they both drew back. What Spike hadn’t expected however was that she’d move so sloppily; in hindsight, he should have guessed she would. He had helped her clean the lair, but she had battled and dusted most vampires in the club. The adrenaline rush had had time to fall back down, and now she was tired. She could still fight, of course, and she would if he pressed her, but it all came back to the reason why he had offered her a truce to begin with, and why he hadn’t taken her down earlier that night when the opportunity had arisen. This was not the fight he wanted.

“I’m going to kill you,” he all but promised, and smiled when she tensed at the words. “But not tonight. I will best you at the top of your game, not when you’re starting to be unsteady on your feet.”

“I’m not!” she protested, sounding almost offended. 

Two steps brought her in front of him, and her arm was already swinging, deadly wood seeking Spike’s heart. He was across the room before she had finished her movement.

“Two days,” he called. “I give you two days to rest. The night after next, we end this. I’ll find you.”

*

If Buffy hadn’t been so tired, she wouldn’t have watched Spike go without making a move to stop him. Instead, she would have run after him, plunged her stake into his back, and ended it right there, right then, with no need to wait two more days or who knew how long until Spike decided it was time to play with her again.

She had been fine through the battle, except for that near miss with the Master. She had been fine afterwards, too. She didn’t give a damn if that vamp had been on her side or not; the one vamp she needed to worry about for now was Spike, no one else. But Spike’s blind shots had found a target, and to hear him, of all people, question her about her family…

She could almost have believed that he knew. It wasn’t possible, she was certain of it, but the way he had brandished the idea of betrayal had gone straight to her heart, reopening a wound she had believed closed if not healed, leaving her to bleed in front of him as effectively as though he had cut her.

He couldn’t know, of course. No one knew but herself, her parents, and the doctors and nurses she had manhandled when escaping the institute. She hadn’t even told her Watcher — the first one; she had never told Spencer anything — about the experience, refusing to answer when he had inquired about her family and whether she wanted to go back to them. After he died, she regretted her silence, wondering what he would have said if she had confided in him how her own parents had tried to have her locked away.

As though thinking of a Watcher was enough to summon another one, Rupert Giles suddenly rushed in, followed by his little troops. His look of worry melted into relief when his eyes met hers. It was…strange; almost difficult to understand. Shouldn’t he be checking whether she had done her job properly?

“Miss Summers! Are you all right?” He looked at her, up and down, clearly searching. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head and tucked her stake into her belt.

“We saw Spike walk out alone and we thought…But you’re fine.”

It was really relief, she realized. He hadn’t looked away from her yet, and it was making her uncomfortable.

“The Master’s dead,” she said, clearing her throat. “I think most of his minions are dust too. Whatever is left should be easy to stake now that they lost their leader.”

“We got a couple that tried to run out,” one of the boys said. The other one, the one with the weird hair, merely nodded.

The next few seconds of awkward silence reminded Buffy that she was amongst strangers, and even Giles’ concern didn’t change that. Part of her wished she could have told someone about the fight, about the near miss, about Spike’s games and how tired she was of them, how she wished they would have had their fight that night, whatever the outcome, rather than have things drag out any longer. But she couldn’t admit any of this aloud, not to anyone. There was nothing in what she had done tonight that she could be proud of, not when she had required the help of a vamp to do it. She regretted now having accepted Spike’s truce; without it, she would have lived or died on her own terms. As it was, the feeling that she was only borrowing time was slowly sinking in, as it had done more and more often in the past year.

“I’m going back to the motel.”

She consciously didn’t look at Giles to see if he approved or not. He wasn’t her Watcher and she had no explanations to give him. She was halfway to the exit when he cleared his throat.

“Would you like a ride back? You must be tired.”

She was indeed, and the temptation to accept his offer was strong. But accepting would have meant showing him where she lived. She had no desire for him to intrude on her life, as Spencer had been so fond of doing.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, and didn’t look back until he called her name.

“Miss Summers, wait! What about Spike? I still think this truce—”

“The truce is over,” she interrupted him. “It’ll be done in two days.”

It was more than she had cared to say and she shook her head, annoyed with herself, as she finally walked out. The night air was fresh, and after the dusty interior of the club she could suddenly breathe more easily. 

She tried not to think as she hurried back toward the hotel, but it was difficult when she couldn’t shake the idea that she could feel Spike’s eyes on her the whole time. Several times she looked around her, tried to spot him, but without any luck. She could only glare at the night, and bite her lips not to call out for him to show himself. She couldn’t let him know how much he was affecting her; she didn’t even want to fully admit to herself how easily he had been able to break past her defenses earlier, mental and otherwise. 

The feeling of being watched finally disappeared when she reached the motel, but it wasn’t particularly reassuring. She hadn’t wanted the Watcher to know where she lived, but she had led Spike – because she was sure that it had been him – straight to it without a second thought. She had to be more careful, she admonished herself, or she would get herself killed.

She ought to have known better, but she stopped at the public phone two doors down her room. She slipped a quarter in and had dialed the number before she could think of what she was doing. The phone rang six times before someone picked up; it was late, she had to have woken them.

“Hello?”

Her mother sounded half asleep. Buffy remained silent.

“Hello? Who is this?”

Annoyed, now, or was it worried? Buffy couldn’t tell anymore. It had been so long since she had heard her voice.

“B…buffy? Is that—”

She hung up abruptly. She shouldn’t even have called. It was all that damn vampire’s fault.

And it was his fault, also, that she barely slept that night. Every time she managed to doze off, the same dream would play again in her head. Instead of the Master, it was Spike who cradled her face between his hands. But no one stopped him when he twisted her neck. Not even her.


	7. In which Spike and Buffy revisit old demons.

By the time morning came, Spike already regretted letting the Slayer go. It was hard to remember, now that she wasn’t in front of him anymore, why it had seemed like a good idea to postpone their fight. Hard, also, not to bow his head when the memory of Drusilla shamed him. She didn’t say a word in his mind, simply stared at him, but he knew what she would have said to him; the same thing he was telling himself.

The Slayer had killed his Dru, taken his princess away from him after merely a century when they should have had ten times longer together, and she deserved one thing, and one thing only – death. Courtesy shouldn’t have been part of it, or Spike’s own pride wanting a good fight from her.

He finally managed to find sleep, but even there Drusilla followed him. He dreamed of their second night in Cleveland, when he had returned to their new lair with good news.

*

_  
“Found the bird, Princess.”_

_Even though Spike kept his voice quiet, his exultation carried through his words. The rumors had been true, and there was indeed a Slayer guarding this only partially active Hellmouth. Soon, he would bring the Slayer’s blood to Drusilla, and then she wouldn’t spend so much time anymore lying down on their bed, too weak to go out most of the time, or to hunt for herself on her best nights. Soon, she would be herself again, and they would reclaim the night together._

_Lying beside her, he held her to him and murmured against her brow._

_“She’s a scrawny little thing but she’s a Slayer, all right. She’ll make you all better, you’ll see, when I bring her to you. And you’ll drink her dry, won’t you Princess? For me?”_

_Drusilla let out a quiet moan. She brought a hand up to cup his face, and her nails were slight pinpricks of pain on his cheek._

_“She wore gold in her hair,” she breathed. “It stung my eyes.”_

_Used to her ramblings, Spike accepted them as he always did and tried to get her to talk. Sometimes, her dreams were too jumbled to make sense of them, but sometimes they were worth every achingly patient minute he spent trying to get her to tell more._

_“Who did, luv?”_

_“You know who, silly,” she chided. “She wore gold and she danced under the stars.” With a hiss, Drusilla turned into Spike’s embrace, scrambling until she was kneeling astride him. Her eyes were dark and accusing when she looked down as him. “You danced with her.”_

_“I only dance with you,” he promised, soothing. “You know that, don’t you? I am your Spike. Yours.”_

_He hadn’t been inside her for too long, and to have her kneeling over him like this, pressing down on his growing erection, was distracting to say the least, especially when Drusilla started rocking against him as though in a trance._

_“You will dance, and dance again, and the stars will weep. And then you will take her blood, and the Slayer will be yours. She will taste sweet and strong and you will forget all about Princess.”_

_Spike’s attention returned in full when Drusilla mentioned the Slayer. He looked at her intensely, barely noticing that she looked so sad._

_“Dru?” he cooed. “Luv? Was that a vision? Did you see me kill the Slayer?”_

_He had known he would do it, of course, he had no other option if he hoped to restore Drusilla’s health. But it was one thing to want something badly enough that you were ready to do anything for it, quite another to be told by a seer that it would happen._

_“You said you’d give her blood to me,” she whined, leaning down to bury her face against Spike’s neck. “But you’ll keep her all to yourself and forget me. Bad Spike.”_

_She bit down on his neck and Spike ground his teeth. Closing his arms around her, he let her drink from him without saying a word. It was usually difficult to get her to feed; he wasn’t going to interrupt her now. When she had stopped – too soon, as always, she never fed enough anymore – he murmured to her._

_“You’re my Princess and I promise I'll bring her blood to you. Make you strong again, make you whole. Then you and I will dance again, you’ll see. Like before. Forever.”_

_He continued whispering comforting nonsense to her until she had fallen asleep against his chest. He grinned the whole time. He would soon add another Slayer’s name to his record, his Dru had foreseen it._

*

It was late in the afternoon when Spike woke again. Emotions swirled through his mind, brought forth by his dreams. Drusilla’s loss was a beacon of pain, demanding vengeance and protesting against any more delays. The memory of her words felt bittersweet; she had claimed he would forget her after he killed the Slayer, and while he had no intention of letting go of her memory, he couldn’t continue to dwell on the past. That might have been one more reason why he had pushed back the moment of the Slayer’s death for so long. Killing her would put a final end to Drusilla’s influence on his life. And yet, he would do it. There was no other path.

He had followed her to her motel the previous night, and he returned there at nightfall, unsure whether he had changed his mind yet. If she walked out and provoked him into a fight, he wouldn’t refuse. She was already gone however, and he was left to snack on a trucker and contemplate his options. He could hunt her down. He had done it before, and it wasn’t complicated since he knew her scent so well. Or he could hold to his word and offer her a last night to live. She hadn’t shown Dru as much consideration of course, and he berated himself for even thinking about it.

In the end, his decision was made when he noticed two furtive shadows crossing a street. They caught his gaze because he was still hungry, but it didn’t take him long to realize that they were vampires. They didn’t seem to be hunting though, and, curious, he started after them. If the town was to be his, he needed to know what the vampire population was like, now that the Master was gone. He wasn’t one for competition, and they would either need to understand that and head out of town or become dust. The sooner Spike spread that message, the better.

*

The day after her fight against Sunnydale’s Master, Buffy stayed in, lying on her uncomfortable motel bed, the television playing as background noise. The fight was replaying in her head, move by move, step by step, and she couldn’t figure out what she could have done differently to escape the Master on her own and not owe her life to Spike. She hated that she had stumbled like this, and hated it even more because Spike had witnessed her weakness. She knew already that he would taunt her about it, when they met next. One more barb to his arsenal, and one that she couldn’t answer to.

She left the motel only in the evening, an hour or so before sunset, to go grab something to eat before patrol. The money Spencer had given her when she had left Cleveland was slowly running out, and she grimaced at having to dine once more on a greasy, tasteless burger and fries. She had gotten used to it in Cleveland, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

Despite Spike practically promising that he wouldn’t come to her until the next night, she kept expecting him to show up during her patrol, and more than once she turned to look back and catch him stalking her. She was almost disappointed that, when she returned to her motel late that night, he hadn’t walked out of the shadows with a sarcastic comment. At least, if he had, it would have been done and over by now.

When she saw the ambulance in the parking lot however, and when she overheard cops mentioning neck trauma and blood loss, a shiver ran down her spine. It had to be a message from Spike, letting her know that he knew where she was and would be there the next night.

Then again, maybe she was obsessing too much about him. After all, this was the Hellmouth, and until her arrival vampires had roamed the streets freely at night.

Her night and the following day, once more, were restless. It wasn’t her fight against the Master that was playing over and again in her head anymore. Instead, it was all of her fights against Spike, all the close calls on both sides, all the small mistakes they had both made. She hoped to be able to use some of his most blatant weaknesses, but the realization that she herself had given him openings so many times was not reassuring in the slightest. Bit by bit, her confidence eroded, and it was hard to even try to clutch at the remnants of it.

It was late in the afternoon when she listened to the clenching in her stomach and stumbled outside to the phone booth. She dialed as she had before, without thinking about it, the number coming easily under her fingers. The phone only rang twice, and when a woman answered Buffy forced herself to speak. Her voice was small, like that of a child.

“Hi mom.”

She could hear the sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line, and a whispered, “Thank God”, before Joyce replied with trembling words.

“Buffy, honey, I’m so worried, please—”

“I’m not coming home,” Buffy interrupted her, knowing what her mother had been about to ask. “I can’t.”

“Why not?” Joyce protested, the tears getting closer to the surface. “You can always come home, baby. You know that, don’t you? I’ll always be there for you and I’ll make it better. Whatever it is, Buffy, we can fix it if you just come home. Please?”

For an instant, anger flared inside Buffy and she wanted to snap that she didn’t need to be fixed, didn’t need doctors or drugs. But that wasn’t why she had called, she reminded herself, and swallowed back the recriminations.

“I’m not coming back,” she repeated. “But I just wanted you to know… I’m all right. Really. I’m OK, now. So you don’t have to worry about me. Just know that I’m fine.”

 _And I miss you,_ she wanted to add. _I wish I could really come home.  
_  
All she could say however was, “Be careful at night, mom.”

Hanging up was harder than it had any right to be.

Returning to her room, she took a long shower before dressing for patrol. She put on a pair of dark jeans and a deep red top. She shined her boots before slipping them on, and checked her crossbow carefully, choosing a handful of well-polished slim stakes to tuck into the ammunition slots of the strap. Packing the few possessions she had around the room, she slung both her duffel bag and crossbow over her shoulder and went to pay what remained of her motel bill.

She had decided to wait for Spike in the same graveyard where he had offered her a truce. She liked the symmetry of it. She had no doubt that he would find her, wherever she was. What she hadn’t expected was that she would meet anyone on her way there.

The car parked a little ahead of her and Giles walked out, glasses in hand, to come to her.

“Miss Summers, I am glad I have found you, but I have a feeling I am too late.”

She frowned at his words, wondering what he meant, if he could know and how, but he explained himself by pointing at her duffel bag.

“You are returning to Cleveland, I see. Your Watcher was adamant to have you back as soon as possible, although I’ll admit I had hoped…”

She didn’t bother to correct him – whatever happened with Spike, she wasn’t planning on returning to Cleveland, and Spencer could die of rage for all she cared – but her frown did change into questioningly raised eyebrows.

“That is…” Giles hesitated, a little flustered. “You could really do a lot of good here, and I am sure the Council would approve your transfer. If you wanted to, of course. From the few words I exchanged with your Watcher, I had the impression that a different setting and different people might be more pleasant for you. And I could arrange for you to go to school here, have a more normal life—”

Buffy had heard enough. She shook her head.

“I’m the Slayer,” she reminded him harshly. “There’s no such thing as normal for me.”

He seemed stung by her reply, and it was too easy to believe that he had only had her best intentions at heart when making his offer. She sighed.

“It’s… nice of you,” she forced the words out with some difficulty. “You’ve been all right while I was there, so thanks. But I need to go, now. I have a date.”

He didn’t try to stop her when she strode past him, and for that she was grateful. Things were hard enough as it was.

She reached the graveyard just as the sun was sinking past the horizon. She found a good place for a fight, a space with fewer gravestones over which to trip, and put down her bag behind one of them, out of the way. Sliding the crossbow strap off her shoulder, she shrugged out of her jacket before flinging it onto her bag. Then she took the weapon in her hands and inserted a thin stake in the channel, preparing everything to shoot. By sheer habit, she patted her belt and the two stakes tucked in. She was ready. All she needed now was an opponent. She didn’t have to wait long.

The wind carried the scent of his cigarette to her before her other senses kicked in and she turned toward Spike instantly, feet squarely set, crossbow in position and waiting for him to be closer so that she’d have a good chance at dusting him.

“Come on,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry despite the distance. “We haven’t waited all this time to end it with a toy. You and me, Slayer. Stake and fangs. That’s how it should be.”

She didn’t lower the crossbow immediately, and instead waited until he had come within a reasonable range before gently placing the weapon on the ground. It was her decision, and she might have reached it without his words, or so she tried to convey with a look.

She pulled a stake free from her belt and gripped it with a familiarity born from countless nights. Now only a few yards away from her, Spike flung his cigarette to the ground. He was smiling, and it irritated her. She didn’t want him to think it would be that easy.

Without warning, she launched her first attack.


	8. In which death is elusive.

The Slayer’s body was hot, her arms twisted and trapped behind her against Spike’s chest, her legs spread apart by his. Her breathing was ragged as she continued to struggle. For now, Spike contented himself with holding her to him, enjoying the way she squirmed ineffectually. Enjoying it enough that his cock was straining in his jeans, craving more friction than what the Slayer’s efforts provided. He had been hard throughout most of their fights, but this time was different. He had won. He knew it, but she hadn’t admitted it yet. Of course she hadn’t. The fight had probably been too short for her to realize what was happening. 

Only a few minutes, a few measures of that fast-paced waltz they had been dancing for months, and she had given him the perfect opening. It was almost too easy, after all this anticipation, to end it like this. That was probably why Spike hadn’t killed her yet, giving her instead one last chance to escape, if she could only summon enough strength. It didn’t look like she would though, and Spike reveled in the knowledge that she was his, as completely as Dru had predicted. He gave his dead lover a warm thought, called his vampire face to the forefront, and tore into the Slayer’s neck.

*

Having laid her crossbow on the ground, Buffy grabbed a stake and held it firmly. She hated to even admit it to herself, but Spike was right. Stake and fangs, that was how it had to end. Still, the way he grinned as he approached her, as though already gloating about his victory, left a bad taste in her mouth. She refused to make it as easy as he obviously believed it was going to be. 

Her first attack was simple and direct. She lunged at Spike, making a stabbing motion with her stake. He evaded, of course, and his grin only deepened. 

“Come on, Slayer,” he taunted. “You can do better than that. Show me what you’ve got.”

The bastard just stood there and waited for her to come to him again. Buffy answered the invitation with a feint and a roundhouse kick. She managed to make contact this time, but Spike rolled into the blow and counter-attacked right away. She blocked his first punch, but the second caught her in the stomach. She dropped back to catch her breath, trying to re-center herself. Spike didn’t give her an instant before attacking again.

They had done this dance before and Buffy had known what to expect when coming here. It made it easier, somewhat, not to listen to the jabs he was throwing in her direction. It didn’t lessen the pain however, and each blow was sharp as a blade every time he made contact with her body. 

She had been ready for it – or at least, she had thought she had been ready – but when he finally made her drop her stake and locked her arms behind her, she still felt a pang of shock. She had thought it would last longer than this. Then again, it was probably better that way.

Even now that it was over, she didn’t want to give in too fast and so she struggled in his deadly embrace. A part of her was wondering why he was taking so much time to finish her. When he bit her at last, she was surprised to realize that it didn’t hurt as much as she had thought it would; relief was a blessing.

*

At the instant Spike’s fangs sank into the delicate flesh of her neck, the Slayer stopped struggling. He didn’t even have the taste of her blood on his tongue yet, but already she was limp in his arms. It distracted him for an instant, enough that she might have taken advantage of it to free herself, but nothing of the sort happened. Securing his hold on her again, he took his first deep pull on her blood. She was as sweet, as strong, as magnificent as he had known she would be, and if possible his cock grew harder as he unconsciously ground it against her ass.

There was just one thing…

In his many dreams of their final battle, when he had seen himself take her life, she had been afraid and pleading, or struggling frantically and cursing him, trying to save herself until the end.

Her heartbeat was calm; calmer than it should have been after a fight to the death or when death was only moments away. And her scent held no trace of fear whatsoever. 

She wanted this. She wanted it to end. 

It shouldn’t have surprised him. He had seen the same thing happen with the first two Slayers he had killed. In the instant when they should have fought harder than ever, they had given up, and accepted the peace and death he had offered them. But while he had gladly taken advantage of the situation both times before, the idea that this one Slayer would fall into the same apathy angered Spike. She should have fought him back until the last drop of blood had left her veins. Anything else from her didn’t match up. Anything less meant that she hadn’t really tried her best. She was robbing him of his victory. She was robbing him of herself. No more fights, no more games, no more feeling her body against him or her small hands on him. She was giving up, and the hell if he was going to let her—

The detour Spike’s thoughts had taken shocked him enough that he froze, mouth still fastened to Buffy’s neck but no longer drawing her blood.

He had been sure, until that instant, that he wanted her dead. But suddenly, both his body and mind were making it clear that he simply wanted her. He had tasted her, but it wasn’t enough anymore; her death wouldn’t satiate his hunger.

Disgusted with himself, with his treacherous desires, he pushed her away from him. She tripped and fell down to her knees, thrusting her hands forward to break down her fall. She remained like this for a few seconds before finally turning over so that she was sitting on the grass, head tilted up toward him. She brought a tentative hand to her neck and gingerly touched the two bloody punctures there as though to confirm he had bitten her.

Spike’s skin burned wherever he had been touching her and it was all he could do not to grab her again. It wasn’t her blood that he was craving now, though. It was her mouth he wanted, her hot little body against his, beneath his, not fighting anymore but moving with him to reach a victory they could share with the same explosion of pleasure.

“Bloody hell!”

Head thrown back toward the sky, he cried out his frustration and anger.

This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him. He didn’t fuck Slayers. He killed them, and he’d dreamed of killing this one for weeks. That any part of him would want to touch her for anything other than pain…

Raging and cursing a blue streak, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. He refused to even acknowledge to himself how much his hands were trembling as he did so. When he looked down at her again, the Slayer still hadn’t moved. Hand pressed to her neck wound, she was frowning at him in incomprehension.

“It’s all your fault!” he accused her, practically growling. “I was ready to kill you once and for all, just like she…”

Spike’s eyes widened in horror as Drusilla’s words echoed in his mind again. 

_And then you will take her blood, and the Slayer will be yours. She will taste sweet and strong and you will forget all about Princess.  
_  
He had done just that, hadn’t he? He had forgotten about Drusilla, about her death at the hands of the Slayer, about how much he missed her, about the prediction she had made. He had forgotten his Princess, as she had said he would. He had tasted the Slayer, taken her blood. But when she had said the Slayer would be his…she couldn’t have meant…

Shaking his head in denial, he took an instinctive step back. It had to be a nightmare. He refused to believe it was anything else. Dru had to have been wrong, there was no way he would start to believe…

“What is wrong with you?” the Slayer’s voice suddenly intruded on his internal ramblings. “Are we going to finish this or what?”

She wavered a little as she got to her feet, and Spike’s stomach lurched when he caught himself wanting to help her stand. It was worse, much worse than a nightmare. In his nightmares, he was unable to stop Drusilla’s death, but he didn’t betray her by wanting to fuck her killer halfway to death and back.

Unable to say anything or to keep looking at her, he turned on his heel and walked away, cursing quietly in between deep drags on his cigarette. The smoke he inhaled was masking what remained of her taste on his tongue, and it was better that way. He could hear her calling after him, but he refused to listen. His mind was enough of a mess, he didn’t need or want to add to the confusion. What he did want was a drink – or a few of them. Maybe if he got drunk enough, all of it would be nothing but a bad dream once he awakened with a nice hangover.

*

For one blessed second, Buffy thought that she was finally about to lay down her weapons for good. Someone else would pick up her fight; that was the beauty of the Slayer line.

But suddenly, the peace she so desperately craved was ripped away from her. Spike stopped pulling on her blood, and shoved her away from him. Both surprised and weakened by the blood she had lost, she stumbled and found herself on the ground. Turning over to see Spike and try to understand what was going on was one of the hardest things Buffy had ever done. She felt lightheaded, and coherent thoughts were beyond her reach. All she could think was – why? Why had he stopped? Why couldn’t she rest? Was there something wrong with her, or her blood?

The ridiculousness of that last thought brought some sense back into her. It was one thing to be ready to embrace death; another to blame herself for not being tasty enough for this stupid vampire. Clearly, the problem was on his side, not hers, and she couldn’t help making her tone stinging when she asked:

“What is wrong with you? Are we going to finish this or what?”

With some difficulty, she stood, keeping her eyes on Spike to know if he was ready to start again and end it this time. Under her bemused eyes, he turned his back on her and started walking away. Fast. She could almost have believed he was running away from her.

“Spike! Come back here, you coward!”

If her knees hadn’t been so shaky, she would have run after him. She would have made him finish what he had started.

For the second time in a few minutes, her own thoughts gave Buffy pause. It was ridiculous to think there was something wrong with her blood if Spike didn’t want it. It was just as silly to think of forcing him to kill her. And if her mind was playing such tricks on her, could she trust anything she was feeling? She had made her peace with the idea that her fight was over, she had even experienced a sort of calm joy about it… Had she been deluding herself about that, too? 

She was so tired of fighting, night after night, without having anything other than vampires to occupy her mind. This was no way to live, Chosen One or not. There had to be a way to change things. And if death wasn’t the way, she had to find something else.


	9. In which a battle plan is drawn.

Her hand poised to knock on Giles’ door, Buffy hesitated one last time. If she did this, and if he helped her, it would truly change everything. She had been called a bit more than three years ago and every step she had taken since had shaped the Slayer she now was. Going through with this was the same as starting from scratch again, and she wasn’t sure she could do it. She wasn’t sure she wouldn’t end up running away again, and if she did it would all have been for nothing. But she had to at least try, she reminded herself. The only other choice was to die, and that route had not proved foolproof either, far from it.

The same hand she had raised to knock came back to her neck and she touched the two wounds there, as she had done more than a dozen times on her way to Giles’. They had stopped bleeding, but were still prominent, and probably extremely obvious. The fleeting question ran through her mind of where Spike was now, and why he hadn’t killed her. She pushed it away even as she pulled up the collar of her jacket, covering the bite as well as she could. She didn’t want it to be the first thing Giles would see. She wasn’t sure she wanted him to see it at all.

Taking a deep breath in, she smoothed her features and finally knocked. When Giles opened the door, she was as composed as she could possibly be when, not an hour earlier, a vampire’s fangs had sunk into her neck. The Watcher’s face reflected surprise, and a touch of something that looked like worry.

“Miss Summers? Can I help you?”

She noted how he stood aside, leaving enough room for her to walk in, but did not actually invite her to enter. She doubted someone who didn’t know about vampires would have noticed, but to her, through the eyes of her training, it was as glaring as though he had sprinkled holy water over her to check that she was still human. Stepping in, she waited until he had closed the door before saying what she had practiced on her way.

“There’s still a lot to do in Cleveland and I should go back.”

Giles had taken off his glasses and he motioned for her to walk further in, but she remained where she was. If he refused to help, she would need to leave fast, before he did anything that would force her to hurt him.

“Would you like me to contact your Watcher?” His eyebrows shot up as though in sudden understanding. “I can help you go back, of course. The Council will pay for your return ticket…”

She interrupted him with a whisper. It was hard for her to admit to any weakness as she was about to do, but there was no other way that she could see.

“I can’t go back.”

His eyebrow fell down, knotting in confusion. It was easier to focus on those involuntary signs of his emotions than to meet his gaze.

“I don’t understand. You just said…”

“I _should_ go back,” she repeated, “but I can’t. If I do, I will be dead soon. And I’m not sure anymore I’m ready to die.”

She hid a wince at her poor choice of words. This wasn’t what she had wanted to say, not at all, but now that she had she knew that Giles was going to drag more out of her. He would make her say all of it, even if she didn’t want to, the same way Spencer had done so often in the past.

Her body tensed as he took a step closer to her, and when his hand came toward her shoulder she instinctively blocked it, closing her fingers around his wrist. It had to hurt; she was holding tight. But he didn’t flinch or show any sign of pain. Instead, he used his free hand and gently pried her fingers off before once more reaching for her. He eased his hand under the straps of her crossbow and duffel bag and lifted them off her shoulder in a swift motion, then deposited them on the floor.

“Come over here and sit down,” he said, his voice quiet but leaving no room for protest.

She followed him to the living-room area and sat on the sofa, on the edge of the seat, ready to bolt.

“Would you like something to drink?” he offered. “Tea? Water? I’m afraid I don’t have much more to offer.”

Her eyes strayed toward a nearby staircase and the golden bottle on top of it. She had drunk only once before, on one particularly bleak night, and a part of her craved the warmth and oblivion a couple of glasses of liquor might bring her. Giles followed her gaze and clucked his tongue reprovingly. 

“Tea, I think. I was just about to make some.”

Indeed, a faint whistling was coming from the direction of the kitchen. As Giles went to his preparations, Buffy looked down at her hands, clasped in front of her. Only a few days earlier, she had been in another city, with another Watcher, waiting for the same cup of tea while wondering how he would react to what she had to say. All she could hope was that Giles would listen better than Spencer knew how.

When he returned with two steaming cups, Giles set one in front of Buffy on the coffee table and sat across from her in an armchair. He didn’t say a word, and for a long moment they were both silent. Buffy eventually shook herself from her contemplation of the dark tea and picked up her cup. She raised a surprised look toward Giles after taking a small sip. There had to be another liquor bottle in the kitchen. The flavor was practically hidden by the tea, but it added a touch of fire to it that settled gently in her belly and loosened her tongue.

“I almost died tonight.”

The words weren’t as difficult to let out as she had thought they would be. Giles didn’t say anything, but he placed his cup on the coffee table and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. Buffy could practically feel his eyes on her neck.

“I think…” Her hands were beginning to shake, so she put her cup down too. “I could have fought harder. Better. But I didn’t care enough to really fight. I don’t even know anymore _why_ I fight.”

She hated the hint of hysteria that was creeping up in her voice. She had always prided herself on her strength, on how well she could react to almost any situation. To break down now was mortifying. But it was also necessary.

“Miss Summers…” Giles’ voice was quiet where she had feared shouting; caring where she had expected scorn. “Buffy… What can I do to help you?”

When Giles asked the right question, a weight she hadn’t realized she carried was lifted. Maybe he did care. Maybe he would truly help.

“Tonight you said…” Had it only been a couple of hours earlier that she had met him by accident on her way to confronting Spike? It felt as though it had been months ago. “You said I could have a more normal life, here. That you could help me do that.”

He nodded. 

“I still don’t think I can have a normal life,” she continued, a little more easily. “But if you could show me, maybe…just remind me what it was like before. What I’m fighting for?”

“Of course.”

Two words, and it was settled.

Giles said more after that, laying out a plan as thorough as though he had been preparing for battle. He babbled for a while about living arrangements before finally suggesting that she could live with him rather than in a motel room. When Buffy shrugged her agreement, he insisted that she take his bedroom while he would sleep on the sofa until he could arrange for a larger apartment. He would enroll her at the school he worked at and she would attend it regularly. He would train with her, accompany her on patrol, but also help her with her class work and prepare dinners for them so she could have one more element of a normal life. 

He had just started mentioning shared chores when Buffy yawned. That brought forth the idea of curfew, and a small part of Buffy started wondering what she had gotten herself into. 

Another part felt incredibly warm when Giles led her to the bathroom, instructed her to remove her jacket, and cleaned and bandaged the two puncture wounds on her neck. His attention was entirely clinical, but his movements were gentler that she could have expected.

“Was it Spike?” he asked, his voice taking for the first time that night the detached interest of a Watcher.

Buffy nodded.

“You said you weren’t fighting hard enough,” he said, more gently, “but you still managed to get away. That’s…”

“He let me go,” she interrupted him. “He just stopped and let me go. I don’t know why. But I do know I didn’t do anything to stop him.”

It was clear that Giles didn’t know what to reply to that.

He showed her where the towels were piled up, and while she was cleaning up for the night he went to get his room – her room, now – ready.

It was only when she slid between the crisp sheets of the too big bed that Buffy realized just what she was doing. She barely knew Giles, and there she was, in his bed, while he was shuffling on the sofa downstairs, the only thing separating them being a staircase. Without a door to close, she felt exposed, vulnerable, more so than she had in the graveyard earlier that night. She hated this feeling.

She was so exhausted however, that even her worrying could not keep sleep at bay. It wasn’t long before she started to dream, strange dreams in which Giles invited Spike in for tea while Spencer dragged Buffy back to Cleveland kicking and screaming.

By morning, she felt as tired as she had been when going to bed, but the delicious scent wafting from the kitchen was too good to resist investigating. Barefoot and clad in her pajamas, she tiptoed downstairs to find that Giles was already making good on his promises.

“Good morning, Buffy. I didn’t know what you would want for breakfast so I cooked a little of everything. Please, help yourself. I have to get ready for work.”

She nibbled on a bit of toast then sipped a glass of orange juice before finally trying the eggs. The bacon, she left alone, but the three marmalade jars were too tempting to resist. She hadn’t realized she had been so hungry.

“This is the library number.” Having reappeared dressed and groomed, Giles placed a slip of paper in front of her. “I’ll be there until four, just give me a call if you need anything. I’ll arrange everything today, and hopefully you’ll be able to start school on Monday.”

He paused then and looked at her expectantly. Unsure what he wanted to hear, Buffy managed an unconvincing “OK” that seemed to satisfy him.

“Feel free to fix your lunch as you want. You can go out, of course, but I think you ought to rest.”

His eyes lingering a second too long on her neck made it clear what he meant by that. With a few more recommendations, he left, and the sudden silence of the apartment was soothing. 

Buffy walked around the living room for a little while, trailing a finger on the spines of ancient books before flicking idly through the too few channels of Giles’ cable-less television. She ought to have cleaned the kitchen, she supposed, yet she didn’t touch the dishes before returning to the mezzanine. 

She was only going to take a short nap, she told herself, but she was asleep as soon as her cheek touched the pillow, and only woke up when the front door announced Giles’ return.

She hadn’t feel this refreshed in weeks. Maybe it hadn’t been a too bad idea, after all, even if Giles rolled his eyes at the remains of her breakfast she had never cleared away.


	10. In which Spike sinks pretty low.

_The Slayer was panting beneath him, Spike’s name and her pleas broken up by heavy breathing and moans. He ignored her requests to let go of her hands, instead changing the angle of his thrusts into her sweet, hot body, trying to make her forget whatever she wanted to do with them. He didn’t want to know if she would have pushed him away or forced him closer. Judging by the way her legs were locked around his waist and how she was using the leverage to accompany each of his movements, he doubted it would have been the former._

_Still, he enjoyed having her at his mercy like this; she wouldn’t come until he was ready to let her and any pleading she did until then, any begging word or honeyed promise she uttered, was just a bonus._

_Without ever changing the pace of his slow thrusts, he leaned down until his chest was brushing against her pebbled nipples. She hissed softly at the contact. He had paid close attention to the rosy nubs earlier, torturing them with fingers, tongue and a hint of teeth until she had been all but sobbing for him to stop and give her more in the same breath._

_His face only an inch above hers, he looked closely at her. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated and shiny. Small beads of sweat on her forehead reminded Spike of how long he had been moving between her golden thighs. He would need to give her—and himself—release soon, or else she would still be sore when time came for round two. Lowering his mouth to hers, he evaded the kiss she offered and instead flicked his tongue at the small scar that ran across her lips. It was rough beneath his tongue, in sharp contrast to her satin skin. He loved the edge it gave her; he loved even more that he had left this mark on her._

_He alternated small kisses and gentle bites down her jaw and neck until he reached the other mark he given her, and again ran his tongue against it. She bucked under him at the touch, driving his cock deeper into her as they both groaned at the sensation._

_“Naughty, naughty Slayer,” he murmured, touching his lips to the two puckered scars. “You like me deep inside, don’t you?”_

_She let out a trembling breath but did not answer; rebellious even now._

_“I know you do,” he continued on the same tone. “You love my cock inside your cunt and you’ve been begging for more. Want my fangs inside you too? You’ll have to tell me, luv. If that’s what you want, you’ll have to ask nicely.”_

_He scraped his human teeth against the bite mark before pulling back to look at her face. She was biting down on her lower lip, probably to stop herself from saying a word. Spike’s lips curved into his nastiest smile even as he increased his pace,, more forceful, demanding her attention. When she gasped and released her lip, the imprint of her teeth scored it, as well as a trace of blood. Leaning down once more, Spike captured that lovely lip between his own and sucked hard, relishing the faint taste of blood tainted with denied pleasure. When he let go again, his features had shifted to his game face and the Slayer shivered at the sight of golden eyes looking right through her and to her very soul._

_“Do…do it,” she whispered, her voice so low Spike thought he had imagined it until she repeated the shaky words._

_Without hesitating, he lunged at her neck and bit down hard next to the earlier marks. The Slayer cried his name as he pulled on her blood and finally freed her arms to loop them around his neck. He forced himself to stop after only three mouthfuls, even if she was the most delicious treat he had ever tasted._

_“God, Buffy,” he whispered raggedly against her neck, holding back his own orgasm until he could bring forth her own. “So beautiful, so good, so…”_

_In a blinding flash of light, she was gone and Spike was left to stand, naked and hard, in a graveyard that seemed oddly familiar. Only when Dru stepped out from behind a tree did he recognize it. This was where the Slayer had killed Drusilla. Part of him supplied the next tidbit of information instantly—this was a dream, all of it had been nothing more than a dream. He growled in irritation._

_“Is she sweeter than me?” Drusilla asked, and Spike thought he would bleed from the shards of ice in her voice. “Is her blood any better? Her cunt any tighter? Does her touch make you want to scream and kill and come forever?”_

_Spike ran a hand through his hair in a frustrated gesture. He knew it wasn’t really his Princess flinging those words at him. His Princess was ashes, had been ashes for weeks, and maybe it was better than her seeing how low he had sunk after all. But she had known, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that why she had gone after the Slayer herself?_

_“I knew you’d forget me when you got her,” she continued, her tone still as cutting as she echoed his thoughts. “I knew you’d betray me.”_

_“I wouldn’t have,” he protested half-heartedly. “If you hadn’t died, I’d never have looked at her like that. I’d never have felt anything but hatred for her. I know I’m sick to want her, but it’s not like she’s going to fall in my bed anyway.”_

_His objections were weak, the pity in Drusilla’s eyes said as much, and it was with the bitterness of shame still on his tongue that he slipped out of the dream._

*

With a groan, Spike turned onto his stomach and winced when his still half-hard cock became trapped uncomfortably beneath him. Shifting back onto his side, he wrapped his hand around it and tried to work himself back to a full erection, but the images of the Slayer he was trying to call to him, the taste of her blood were replaced instead by Drusilla’s contempt and his cock wilted completely.

 _It’s not like I’m actually fucking her_ , he repeated to himself the feeble argument he had thrown at Drusilla—at his own guilt—but it didn’t help. He wasn’t fucking the Slayer, at least not yet, but he would if he ever got a chance. And until then…

He opened an eye to discover blonde hair on the pillow next to him. The girl’s face—at least, he thought it was a girl—was turned away, and through what remained of a heavy hangover Spike tried to remember what her name had been. Had he even asked? It didn’t seem like he would ever know now, because the girl’s heart wasn’t beating. A shame to fuck and kill and not remember a thing, though. 

A little nagging voice that sounded too much like Dru for comfort asked if that was what he would do to the Slayer once he caught her, and Spike frowned as he sat up, assaulted by a terrible doubt. What if the dream hadn’t been one, and…

He sighed when he could see the girl’s face. Not the Slayer, then. Not even human, he soon discovered as her eyes fluttered open and she yawned widely, flashing her game face and fangs.

“’llo baby,” she murmured, turning her face toward him. “You ready for more? I don’t know what got into you last night but it was… wow!”

And with her high-pitched voice, flashes of the night came back to Spike. The bar, and the slightly excessive amount of alcohol he had ingested. The glint of golden hair. Chatting up a girl who had soon reveled to be pathetically boring but blonde hair had kept Spike’s attention. Falling into bed with her, and asking her to be quiet, even squinting so that he could lose himself in the illusion.

Rolling onto his back, Spike covered his face with his arm and groaned. He was pathetic. Picking up a girl because her hair looked like the Slayer’s? What else would he do next? Could he even sink any lower?

“What’s wrong baby?” the girl cooed, her hand sliding over to him to cover his cock. It remained thoroughly uninterested, which added to Spike’s irritation.

“Get out of my bed,” he growled, flashing amber eyes at her to show he wasn’t joking. “As a matter of fact, get out of here.”

The girl snatched her hand back as she sat up and tossed her hair over her shoulder with practiced ease. Spike’s eyes were attracted to the blondness for a second before he caught himself.

“It’s _my_ bed,” she said haughtily. “And it’s _my_ place. If you’re going to be so grumpy, you can show yourself out. I haven’t done anything to deserve this.”

She slipped out of the bed and stepped into what had to be a bathroom, judging by the sound of running water coming from behind the door. Sitting up in confusion, Spike looked around him. Fluffy white comforter on the bed, vanity dresser against the wall covered in dozens of perfume bottles and make-up products, a large and not particularly good painting of roses in a vase… This definitely wasn’t the abandoned building he had been crashing in for the past couple of weeks. He really had had too much to drink if he had thought it was even for one second. Then again, he had been drinking more alcohol than blood for ten nights now, ever since he had let the Slayer go without killing her when she had been at his mercy.

Picking up his clothes on the floor, he slipped them on and sighed in relief when he found cigarettes in his duster’s pocket. He lit one as he gave the apartment a last look—way too girly for his taste, but it had the comforts that Spike’s own digs didn’t have—and found his way toward the door. The sun hadn’t set yet, but his instincts were assuring him that it was late enough to risk coming out now. And if he fried, at least he wouldn’t have to think about the Slayer again.

It would have been a pity to die without seeing her again, though. As he evaluated the distance between the shadowed front step and his car on the side of the road, he idly wondered if she was still in town. He had deliberately stayed out of the way until now, unwilling to see her again before he had strengthened his resolve to kill her, but he might as well admit that it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Was she even still in Sunnydale, or had she run off away from him, where she’d be safe? 

It was time to find out.

He drove to the motel where she had been staying, but the lack of tingles soon made it clear that she was nowhere around. Annoyed, with her and himself, Spike drove back to the graveyard where they had fought and parked there to wait for sundown. He wasn’t one for regrets, had never been, but maybe his drinking binge had not been the most inspired thing he had ever done. If she had left town, she had a lead of up to ten days on him, and he didn’t have the beginning of a clue on where she might have run off to. Cleveland, maybe? Or anywhere else in the country for all he knew. 

He thought about it until nightfall. The Watcher in Sunnydale might be a good source of information, and if he wasn’t the one in Cleveland might talk. One of them had to know something.

Before getting to that though, Spike wanted to make sure the Slayer had really left. Maybe she had just moved to a different motel. Maybe she was still in town and hunting for him; that was something he thought she might do.

And maybe finding her would be as easy as catching her scent on the wind as soon as he stepped out of the car.


	11. In which there is a truce and a plan (Spike is so predictable sometimes).

Buffy grimaced as she brushed dust off her clothes. She had found out the hard way that vampire dust clogged washing machines, and Giles had not been particularly thrilled when his previously sparkling new washer had needed professional help only days after they had moved into the new townhouse. She needed to start being more careful, according to him, or else return to using the laundromat.

Satisfied that most of her latest victim was now on the ground rather than on her jeans, she moved on amongst the graves, idly debating whether to add another cemetery to her patrol. On one hand, she had only dusted three vamps so far, and that was definitely not on par for the course. Since the Master had died, her average had been around seven vamps a night, although she had noticed a decrease in the past week. On the other hand, she had a world literature exam first thing in the morning, and she desperately needed to study for it if she wanted a chance to pass this class.

She had been surprised to discover on her first day back to school that she hadn’t forgotten as much as she would have thought, and with Giles’ creative help with her school records, she was on track to graduating with her year. It was still hard to believe considering she had attended school a grand total of two weeks for the past two years. It seemed that Sunnydale High, plagued by the disappearance of so many of its students, would do anything to boost its graduating numbers. Buffy took it as a ‘thank you’ for trying to prevent more students from meeting an untimely end.

It had been just over two weeks since she had knocked on Giles’ door and done what was so hard for her—asked for his help. She still couldn’t believe how much things had changed in such a short period of time. She had gone from not caring if she would live to see another day to being back in school, having a couple of tentative friends, listening (more or less) to the closest thing she had had to a parental figure since being Chosen, and actually wanting to see what life would be like for her in a week, a month, or even a year. She didn’t know how long it would last, she didn’t even know if it could last at all, but this reprieve after months of running was soothing.

And apparently her question was about to be answered; it would either end tonight, or continue with a bit more peace of mind for her.

“The stalking act is getting old, Spike,” she called out, unsure where the vampire was exactly but certain that he was close. She hadn’t felt those particular tingles since the night he had failed to kill her, but she could recognize him amongst all vamps. “Come out and let’s finish it this time.”

It was the glowing red tip of his cigarette that caught her eyes first, and she turned to face him, ready to fight, as he took slow steps toward her. He looked much calmer than when she had last seen him. She didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing.

“I’ve been following you for five nights,” he said, head tilted to one side. “Are you getting tired of it or didn’t you notice until now?”

Buffy fought to hide her shock and remain perfectly still. She had been slowly getting back to her best fighting these last two weeks, or so she had thought. If Spike had truly been following her without her noticing, she still had a longer road in front of her than she had believed.

“Let’s get it over with,” she said coldly, and took a step toward him.

Spike instantly stepped back, hands raised in front of him, palms toward her in a defensive gesture.

“Hey, calm down, would you? I want to offer you a truce.”

Startled by the unexpected claim, she couldn’t help herself. She laughed.

“Another one?” she asked. “What’s the excuse, this time? The Master’s dead and the vamp population is getting down pretty fast, so it’s not like I need your help.”

He smirked, and Buffy’s laughter subsided. “As a matter of fact… There is a new Master in town.” He paused for effect. “Me. And I’ve been thinning the herd myself. That’s the reason you’ve got less to do these days.”

Incredulous, Buffy frowned. Where was he going with that? And was he even telling the truth? She ought to have known better than to believe him for one second, but he hadn’t lied to her so far, had he?

“Get to it, Spike,” she snapped. “What do you want?”

He took a last drag on his cigarette and flicked what was left of it to the ground before burying his hands in his pockets.

“I told you what I want. A truce. I want Sunnydale as my own, and I offer to help you clean up the town if you’ll let me hunt.”

“So you’ll kill vamps you don’t like and make your own? I don’t think so.”

He had the nerve to roll his eyes at her. “I don’t plan to make minions. They’re too much work to keep in line. I just want the Hellmouth as my hunting ground. Think about it. Between the two of us if we get rid of most of the vamps around here, there’ll be less deaths each night. Might even get to a point where I’ll be the only hunter. Think of all the lovely people who won’t become snacks.”

It made way too much sense for Buffy to like it. If he had truly been ‘thinning the herd’, if the decrease in her kills number was truly due to him, then he had already saved dozens of lives without her realizing it. But why? There had to be a twist in his reasoning, some hidden motive for him to even suggest it all. After all, not that long ago he had had his fangs in Buffy’s neck and had been two seconds away from killing her. What had changed his mind? What did he truly want?

“I can’t give you a pass on killing whoever you want,” she finally said, unable to either accept or refuse his offer.

“And I don’t need one,” Spike grinned. “If you find me killing, we’ll finish it. This time for good. But if you don’t…” He shrugged. “Every night you kill the vamps you find, but what about those who don’t show their fangs? You can walk by a crowd, and know there’s a vamp in it, but not be able to do a thing because you don’t know who to stake. I’m just asking you to pretend I’m in that crowd, and ignore me until I do something to catch your eye.”

She fought back the urge to scratch at the scars on her neck. “You’ve already caught my attention,” she pointed out. “You almost killed me. You think I can forget that?”

His face closed off, all emotions disappearing from his features. “I’m not asking you to.”

“I don’t like it,” she insisted.

“And I’m not asking you to do that either. If I hadn’t shown myself tonight, I’d have done exactly what I offered without you even knowing about it.”

There was still something he wasn’t saying, Buffy was sure of it, and all this word play was giving her a headache.

“Why?” she asked, her eyes scrutinizing him.

“Why what?”

“Why are you telling me? For that matter, why don’t you just get rid of me? You’d have the town to yourself without having to worry. Hell, if you’d just killed me two weeks ago…”

Her voice trailed off as Spike turned his back on her and started walking away, reminding her of how he had run off rather than finish killing her.

“I made you an offer,” he called over his shoulder. “Take it or leave it. I’m not explaining anything more.”

*

“And he didn’t say anything more than that?”

Tapping her pencil on the desk, Buffy shook her head distractedly in answer to Giles’ question. The words were blurring on the page in front of her and she wanted nothing more than to get to bed; she really ought to have come home earlier.

“I don’t think you can trust him,” Giles said slowly. “He almost…”

She raised a sharp gaze at him and he stopped instantly. She knew what Spike had almost done. She had been there. She didn’t need Giles to remind her.

“You’re saying I should dust him and be done with it?” she asked, closing her literature book with a snap.

Giles took a few seconds to clean off his glasses before answering. “If you think you can do it safely, it might be the best course of action. If not… stay away from him. Whatever truce he offered you, he still killed two Slayers before you. I don’t want you to be the third.”

She refrained from rolling her eyes at that quiet declaration. Giles could be really mushy, sometimes, in his own way.

“I’d better get some sleep. Early day, tomorrow.”

She could feel Giles’ eyes on her as she walked to her room, and somehow it made her feel…protected. It was stupid, really. She was the Slayer, she didn’t need a stuffy Englishman to look over her. And at the same time, she could admit that she did. That was why she was there, after all, living under his roof, eating the food he put in front of her, following his rules and seeking advice from him.

Maybe she shouldn’t have insisted so adamantly that she didn’t want him to accompany her on patrol. His presence might have helped her keep her mind clear when she had to deal with Spike.

Because, there was no doubt in her mind about it, she and Spike would meet again.

*

Spike was humming on his way to a nearby demon bar, rather happy with the first phase of his plan. The Slayer had not gone as far as to shake hands with him over his offer, but she hadn’t refused it either, had not even tried to dust him, and that was a nice first step as far as he was concerned. It was better than what he had expected would happen.

His stop at the bar was brief. He had been coming there each night to check if any vamps were there, and if so dust them. There had been some laughs when he had first announced that he was claiming Sunnydale as his and that any vamp who didn’t want to turn to dust ought to leave and fast. But the laughs had soon died off, and he was pretty sure he was being taken seriously, now. His kills over the last few nights had seen to that, and he would continue cleaning off the town, as he had told the Slayer he would, both for the sake of his plan and because he didn’t particularly like to share.

The next night, and the few nights after that, he arranged to place himself on the Slayer’s patrol route and made a point to fight and dust vamps where she could see him. He never talked to her during this time, contenting himself with making eye contact with her, and giving her a slight nod before moving on. She stopped looking so surprised to see him, and even, once, threw a stake at him when he had lost his own. Phase two was well on its way. Time to move on to phase three.


	12. In which Spike messes up phase three of his plan. Or does he?

It had been a long time since Buffy had followed any kind of formal training schedule. When Giles had suggested it, a few days after she had started school, she had looked at him with a mix of amusement and incredulity. He was twice or maybe even three times her age, and she was the Slayer. Any kind of sparring, she had been sure of it, would end with him in the hospital.

But her amusement had since faded into a grudging respect. Unlike what she had expected, Giles was rarely sparring with her. Rather, he was directing her through exercises that initially seemed senseless, but that now appeared to have a point. She suspected that asking her to jump ropes on the first day had been a test of endurance, as he hadn’t asked her to repeat the exercise since. Instead, he had been focusing on two things, as far as she could tell. 

Every few days, he slapped a blindfold over her eyes and asked her to predict where an enemy was by using her other senses. The first time he had proffered the blindfold, she had made a crude joke about his kinks and it had been rather entertaining to see him blush and stutter his outrage. She had quickly come to appreciate the value of the exercise though, and she was trying to keep the teasing to a minimum. His cooking skills seemed to decrease exponentially when she embarrassed him.

The other fighting technique he was focusing on was the use of a sword. Buffy had protested about that at first; her favorite weapon, apart from a plain old stake, was her crossbow, and as she had demonstrated, her aim with it was excellent. But Giles had launched into a lecture about what kind of demons she could expect to meet on patrol now that the town didn’t have a strong vampire Master any more, and Buffy had picked up the sword, not because he had convinced her, but because the man could outtalk anyone she had ever known.

To her own surprise, Buffy had discovered that she actually enjoyed handling a sword. The weapon had seemed cumbersome at first, too long and heavy, but under Giles’ careful watch she was quickly becoming used to the steel’s weight in her hand. And, as she reasoned, striking an enemy without getting too close and risking being hit herself couldn’t be all that bad.

“That’s better,” Giles praised her last series of steps through the library. “Though you’re still opening yourself on the left with every other strike. We’ll work more on that tomorrow.”

Turning her back on him to pick up a towel on the back of a chair, Buffy raised her eyes to the ceiling as she dabbed at her face. She had yet to hear the Watcher give her a compliment without immediately amending it in some way.

At the table in front of her, Cordelia was oblivious to what was going on around her, immersed as she was in one of Giles’ reference books. There were three more left in front of her, the last of a pile she had been slowly working through for almost two weeks.

“Finding anything?” Buffy asked, more to annoy her than because she really cared. Cordelia’s revelation earlier that day that, in this fabled world she kept talking of, Buffy lived in Sunnydale with her mother and had never been to Cleveland had struck a nerve, and she had been irritated with the brunette ever since.

Cordelia threw her a dark look that showed exactly she wasn’t duped by Buffy’s artificial interest, but her voice was honey-sweet. “Nothing. Thanks for asking. And thanks so much for all the help you’ve been giving me with it.”

Her voice had turned cutting on the last words; Buffy shrugged. She had better things to do than to look for a demon who supposedly granted wishes. 

“Miss Chase, I thought we had agreed that you’d leave the library before nighttime?” Giles sighed. “I cannot continue to drive you home because you forget to keep track of time.”

“You didn’t notice night was falling either.” 

Buffy wanted to roll her eyes at the pouting girl, or maybe shake some sense into her. As much as Cordelia claimed that everyone had been very different in ‘her’ world, she clung to Giles and Buffy as though they were her salvation. The book closed with the kind of sharp noise that, Buffy had learned, never failed to bring a reproving frown to Giles’ face. Cordelia clutched it to her chest as she stood, but Giles’ extended hand demanded it back before she had taken a step toward the exit.

“It would just go faster if I could take it home,” she argued. “Or if at least you helped me! I’m sure we could all get back to that other world if you did, and I promise you’d love it!”

Her pleading had no effect on Giles who added the book to the pile and picked it up to return the precious moldy volumes to his office.

“For one thing,” Cordelia added, her voice much quieter now, “where I’m from _he_ ’s not in Sunnydale anymore.”

She retreated back behind the table—behind Buffy—just as Buffy whirled around to face the library doors, where that sixth sense of hers screamed that Spike was coming in.

“Gotta love public places,” he commented, smirking for all he was worth. “Makes my life much more easier.”

Buffy dropped her towel to the ground, and the next instant she was ready, feet spread exactly as prescribed by Giles’ lessons, both hands holding the hilt of her sword and ready to lunge forward and swing. From the corner of her eye, she could see the entrance to Giles’ office. The Watcher was brandishing a cross in one hand and fumbling with a crossbow with the other.

“New weapon,” Spike noted idly. “Nice. But here I thought we had an understanding. What happened to our truce, Slayer?”

She pivoted to follow him as he sauntered over to the nearest table and leaned against it.

“I never agreed to anything,” she reminded him coldly. “And I certainly never invited you here.”

Cordelia was slowly backing away, muttering a string of ‘Oh God’ that Buffy completely ignored, just as she ignored Giles’ protests when Spike lit up a cigarette. Her mind was reeling as she tried to understand why he would come here. She couldn’t come up with one good answer.

“Let’s get to business then,” Spike said in an exhalation of smoke. “I found a demons nest last night. Five or six of them. Nasty beasties, taller than me and not half as good looking. They were doing a song and dance number, and I’m not talking about anything you’d see on Broadway.”

He stopped there and looked at Buffy expectantly. She did nothing but stared at him blankly, tightening her hold on her sword. If he thought she was going to fall for this kind of lame…

“What kind of demons? Can you describe them?”

Giles’ questions were unexpected enough that Buffy looked back and frowned at him. He was the one who had said she ought to stay away from Spike, and dust him if she had the chance. And now he was taking his word on the existence of an alleged demons nest?

She lowered her sword slowly and watched them interact, vaguely aware that she shouldn’t have been left out of the proceedings but too baffled to join in. Giles had clearly not forgotten that he was talking to a vampire, and not just any vamp but Spike. He was still holding on to his crossbow, though how that could be useful when he was flicking through the pages of a book, Buffy didn’t know. Spike looked a little amused as he described the shade of muddy brown of the demons, their approximate height and weight, and the ritual he had seen them perform. 

Giles finally pointed at a drawing in his book, Spike agreed that it was it, and before she knew it Buffy was on her way to go stop the not so friendly creatures lest they brought hell on earth.

There was something very strange going on. Something extremely peculiar. 

And the weirdest thing of all was that following Spike to that nest felt almost…familiar.

*

If he was entirely honest, Spike had not expected it to go so well.

He had not said a word that wasn’t true. He had seen the demons he had described the previous night, and he would lead the Slayer straight to them and help her get rid of the threat. What he hadn’t mentioned was that he had been on the look out for just such an occasion for the past few days, and he could have killed them on his own if he had truly wanted. But that wouldn’t have helped much, at least not unless the Slayer had seen him do it. Better to tip her off on the threat and tag along for it, offer his support. At least, that was the plan. 

Her Watcher couldn’t have been any more helpful if he had tried. Just the right amount of suspicion balanced with some nervous alarm when he had figured out what the demons were and what bad mojo they were doing. The best though was that the Slayer had convinced the old man that she didn’t need him to come with her, which suited Spike just fine.

She was still suspicious, Spike was very much aware of that as he led her to the clearing in the woods, but she was also following him without threats. The best part had to be that there was absolutely no hint of fear in her scent. He had thought that might be an obstacle, seeing how he had almost killed her, but the girl was resilient. She had picked herself up very nicely. And soon she’d be ready for Spike to do the picking.

*

Considering the time it took her and Spike to get to their nest, the demons demonstrated a very disappointing level of fighting skills, and within a few minutes the fight was over, the ground turning grayish with spilled blood. At least, Buffy thought as she wiped her blade on one of her victim’s robes, she had finally gotten to use her sword for something other than practice.

Slow claps behind her reminded her if need be of Spike’s presence. He had taken down two of the demons with his bare hands, she had noticed. He could be such a show off.

“Nice fight, luv,” he said as he came closer. “Good to see you at the top of your form.”

She almost expected him to follow that with a declaration that now he would fight with her to the death as she was finally worthy of him. Her body tensed in preparation of his attack, and when he raised a hand toward her she started swinging her blade. But his movement was too slow to be hostile, and Buffy stopped when she realized that. Then froze when he made contact.

His thumb was practically a caress on her cheekbone, the rest of his hand cradling her face. She wanted to protest, demand to know what in hell he thought he was doing, but already he had withdrawn and she watched in fascination as he slowly brought the thumb to his mouth. He had swiped his finger along a small cut on her cheek, she belatedly realized, and his tongue flicked out in a practically obscene gesture to lick her blood from his skin.

Again, the protests started rising to her throat, and again they died off before she said a word. To watch him do this, to see his heavy-lidded eyes, the small smile curling his lips as he tasted her, made her wonder if that was what he had looked like, with his fangs in her flesh, if the pleasure on his face had been as obvious. It had been nothing but pain on her part, but it had also been more than that. She had been ready to die when he had first bitten her, but she had never wanted to live as much as when he had stopped. To see him now was reminding her of it, of the slow climb back to a semblance of normalcy she had started because of him.

She started to shout the instant she realized she was, just a little bit, grateful to him.

“What in hell is wrong with you?”

He blinked in surprise at her ranting, and took a step back when she raised the sword in front of her.

“Are you insane?” she continued, incensed. “You think just because you didn’t kill me you can… you can… do this kind of stuff? You pig! You… you… vile demon! I should take your head off right now and God! How wonderful would it be never to have to see you again!”

But despite her offensive stance, despite Spike’s immobility, despite the threats she continued to shout, she did not kill him. And she couldn’t have explained why not.

*

The Slayer’s unexpected verbal explosion left Spike speechless long enough that he still hadn’t said a word when she backed up a few steps, still facing him, before turning on her heel and walking away.

More by reflex than conscious design, he followed her, staying at a reasonable distance but keeping her in sight until she had returned to the school. The whole time, he tried to evaluate just how badly he had messed up. Getting a taste of her had definitely not been part of the plan—at least not this soon, but when he had seen that cut on her cheek, he hadn’t been able to resist.

Fuck.

Back to phase two, then. After the way she had screamed at him, it was probably best to stay away for a little while. And it had all been going so well…

His only consolation was that she had shouted, and threatened him, but in the end she had not tried to strike him. Maybe it wasn’t so bad, he reflected as he grabbed a bite before returning to his new apartment. He noticed with satisfaction that the ugly rose painting and the box of dusty cosmetics he had left on the sidewalk were gone before turning his thoughts back to the Slayer and deciding that the night hadn’t been a complete loss. They weren’t back to killing each other, so it could have been worse. All he needed was to be patient.


	13. In which a fairly significant development takes place. (It would kind of ruin the surprise if I said they kiss, wouldn’t it?)

“You have friends, there.”

Buffy tried her best to ignore Cordelia’s whisper and focus on whatever their teacher was saying about poetry. Giles had seemed disappointed by her last English grade, and even though she shouldn’t have cared about a slight frown, she did. She would do better on her next assignment. And doing better meant paying attention in class, even if she was tired by a long patrol, confused by yet another sighting of Spike staking a vampire, and interested despite her best efforts in what Cordelia was saying.

“Real friends. Not like here where people stare at you because you look tough and because things have been getting better since you arrived in Sunnydale.”

She let out a little snort at that, and Cordelia became silent when the teacher turned a reproving gaze on them. 

Buffy had noticed the looks she attracted in the halls and at the cafeteria, as well as the whispers that seemed to stop whenever she got close. With as few students as Sunnydale High counted, everyone seemed to know her, and there were rumors going around. 

The most ridiculous one she had heard claimed that she wasn’t the librarian’s niece bur rather his secret lover. She had caught the idiot who had been spreading that one, and had convinced him to stop with a nice little chat during which she had pressed his six-foot frame against a locker one-handed. Another recurring one hit much closer to the truth and made her a recipient of mutant powers or the latest product of the US military. She didn’t try to stop that one; another demonstration of force would have confirmed rather than contradicted it.

“You even have a boyfriend,” Cordelia continued, still whispering, once the teacher returned her attention to what she was writing on the board. “Well, I’m not sure if he’s still your boyfriend, you two have a pretty complicated story. I mean, a vamp and a vampire Slayer falling in love and—” 

For the first time since class had started, Buffy looked at Cordelia, her eyes sharp as daggers.

“What did you say?” she hissed. 

Cordelia satisfied smirk was completely insufferable. “It’s a long story,” she whispered back. “I’ll tell you at lunch.”

And with that, she proceeded to ignore Buffy’s dark looks and turned her attention to the lecture. By the time the bell rang, signaling the end of the class and the beginning of their lunch period, Buffy could have strangled her.

“You’re saying in your world I’m in love with a vampire?” she asked at they left the room together, her voice not quite low enough if she was to judge by a couple of startled students looking their way. She glared at them and they hurried away. “You think I’m going to believe that kind of nonsense?”

“Believe what you want,” Cordelia shrugged. “I know what I’ve seen. Star crossed lovers and all that, he lost his soul and went to hell because of you and when he came back you were both ready to risk it all, all over again. That’s how much you love him. And yes, he is a vampire.”

Buffy was silent until they had reached their lockers and put their things away. What Cordelia was saying was incredible—impossible—and yet, the girl seemed to know a lot about Buffy, about what she did, about Giles, even. Could she be telling the truth about this? Could there possibly be another reality in which Buffy had feelings for a vamp?

A sudden thought sent a bead of cold sweat sliding down her back.

“It’s…it’s not Spike, is it?” she asked, very quiet now, goose bumps rising on her upper arms.

Cordelia looked at her with wide, incredulous eyes. “Spike?” she practically shrieked. “Of course not! Eww. That would be so sick.”

She rambled on about a guy named Angel as they went down the lunch line together, but even though the name was vaguely familiar for some reason, Buffy wasn’t really paying attention. Some part of her had been sure Cordelia was talking about Spike, and she couldn’t understand why.

“Did I kill him?” she asked, abruptly cutting off Cordelia, after they had sat down.

Cordelia frowned. “Angel?”

“Spike. Did I kill Spike in your world?”

“No. You teamed up with him at some point and then he left town with his skanky girlfriend. I heard she dumped him. But that’s not—”

“Drusilla is alive?” Buffy interrupted again. “I didn’t kill her either?”

The disappointment when Cordelia confirmed it was greater than what Buffy would have expected, and that confused her even more. She should have been disappointed that none of her incarnations seemed to be able to kill Spike, not worried about whether his girlfriend was alive or dead in some other dimension. It made her think back again on the intensity with which Spike had battled her after she had dusted Drusilla in Cleveland, and how sure she had been that he would kill her in the end. It made her wonder, for the umpteenth time, why he hadn’t. Why he helped her, rather than oppose her; he had never given any reason to his actions.

“So, will you?” Cordelia asked hopefully, pulling Buffy out of her thoughts.

“Will I what?” she replied distractedly.

“Talk to Giles. Ask him to help me find the demon that changed everything. There’s got to be a way to change it back!”

Standing, Buffy picked up her tray and shook her head. “You’ve heard him. It’s too dangerous. You shouldn’t have been messing with alternate dimensions in the first place.”

She walked away, leaving Cordelia behind. She had a few minutes before her next class, and she wanted to be by herself and think. A lot had happened since she had come to Sunnydale and Spike had followed her there, and there were too many things relating to him that she didn’t understand. Maybe it was time to stop wondering and simply ask.

*

Staring at the Slayer, Spike’s mind worked quickly to come up with an acceptable answer to her questions. She had surprised by coming to him tonight instead of remaining at some distance as she always did, and while he had been initially glad to see that his plan was working, things weren’t going as they should have. He had suspected she would ask about his motivation, sooner or later, but he hadn’t expected it to be so soon. 

It was too soon. She wasn’t ready yet to fall in bed with him, and even if she did it wouldn’t last long. He had to play this one really carefully, and be patient until…

All thoughts of patience disappeared with a silent roar of his demon when she tilted her head just enough to expose the marks on her throat more clearly. 

_Sod being patient.  
_  
Controlling himself, he sat down on a tombstone, just a few feet across from where she was leaning against a marble monument as tall as she was. 

“What do you want to know most?” he asked, keeping his eyes on her as he pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. “Why I didn’t kill you or why I’m helping you?”

He had time to take two slow drags before she answered.

“Why you didn’t kill me.”

He nodded once, and said it as matter of fact as possible: “I realized I want to fuck you more than I wanted to see you dead.”

For several excruciatingly long seconds, she remained silent and extremely still, to the point that Spike wondered whether she had heard him.

“Very funny,” she said at last, her voice cracking with ice. “The real reason now?”

He stood and ground his half finished cigarette beneath his heel before slowly approaching her.

“That’s the real reason. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to do a Slayer, and you…” He smiled lasciviously. “Well, come on. I know that every time we fought, every single time, your panties were dripping seconds after we started. It makes you hot when we fight. It makes you hot because it’s _me_. And I—”

“You loved Drusilla,” she cut in harshly, pushing away from the monument to stand with her arms crossed. “Remember Drusilla? That girl of yours that I had to wash out of my clothes for days after dusting her?”

It hurt. Of course it did, and that was what she wanted. But Spike had been battling Dru in his dreams for weeks now. There was nothing the Slayer could say that he hadn’t heard already from his Princess. And what she wasn’t saying – or denying – was more interesting anyway.

“So, you admit it, then?” he drawled, taking one more step toward her and smirking when she hesitated then stepped back. “You’re hot for me.”

She snorted, but kept retreating when he continued to advance on her. One more step and the monument would stop her from fleeing any further. “I so am not. And Drusilla—”

She stopped as though realizing she was stuck between the marble and him, redefining the meaning of being caught between a rock and a hard place.

“I’ll always love her,” he said, his voice a murmur now that he was so close he could practically feel her heartbeat. “And as much as it hurts, that doesn’t mean I’ll never love anyone else.” He realized at her slow blink what he had just said; he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression, so he continued quickly. “And that doesn’t mean I can’t shag anyone else, either.”

He could see that the Slayer was struggling to find something to say. But her clever retorts seemed to be failing her, and all she did was stare at him, too shocked to even move. That worked just fine for Spike, and he slowly leaned in toward her lips, resting his hands on each side of her against the marble.

“Don’t,” she said weakly.

Spike merely grinned. 

Her lips were warm, just a little chapped, and they parted easily when Spike pushed his tongue in. He wanted to press his body against her – craved to feel her heat once more – but he forced himself to keep things slow. Just mouth against mouth, his tongue slowly caressing hers, waiting, waiting…

There.

She made the quietest sound in the back of her throat, half sob, half moan, and finally started returning the kiss. Tentative strokes of her tongue against his, against his lips, and the barest pressure forward. He had her. She was as good as in his bed, and it wouldn’t be long—

And then she was gone.

She broke the kiss and slipped away so fast that she was already a few yards away when Spike turned toward her. Frustrated, he called after her, but she didn’t look back and instead walked faster. Spike sighed and watched her go. Going after her now wouldn’t have helped, or at least he didn’t think it would have. He had pushed as far as she had been willing to let herself be pushed; anything more and she might have snapped. Better that it ended like this than with her shoving a stake into his chest.

Hell, she had kissed him back. That was much better than he would have thought he’d get so soon. He was going to have himself a nice long wank, and think of all the places that pretty mouth of hers would go, once he had his way.

*

_Spike kissed me.  
_  
Buffy crossed half the town with that single thought looping through her mind. She just couldn’t comprehend why he would – or how he would dare. He said he wanted to fuck her, and she could believe that. It explained why he had been trying to gain her trust. But that kiss hadn’t been about fucking. Or if it had, Spike was a better actor than she gave him credit for.

Then again, it wasn’t as though she had enough experience with kissing to compare this to anything. Being a Slayer had put an end to her social life, first with the asylum and then the running away. She didn’t look at boys – men – that way. She didn’t have time for it. And she’d never have expected that Spike would…

_Spike kissed me._

The front door creaked when she opened it, and she winced. She had hoped to be able to escape Giles’ notice, but there he was, walking out of the bedroom he had converted into an office, a book in his hands and a stray pen mark on his cheek.

“Buffy. How was patrol?”

_Spike kissed me._

“OK. Same old.”

She slipped by him on his way to her own room, tensing as though he would be able to tell simply by looking at her what had happened. He didn’t say anything however, and she let out a quiet sigh once she had safely closed the door behind her. Leaving the lights off, she let herself slide down the door to sit on the floor against it. She traced her lips with a finger, barely realizing she was trembling, and tried to wrap her mind around that incomprehensible notion.

_Spike kissed me. And I let him._


	14. In which Buffy grows more befuddled and Spike more frustrated.

A fitful night with little sleep left Buffy cranky and more confused than ever. 

Over breakfast, Giles watched her play with her food and asked if everything was all right. Buffy almost told him, then, about Spike and what he had done. What she had allowed him to do. She wanted to tell someone, anyone, just to hear it said aloud. Maybe it would become more real, then. Or maybe it would fade into the incomprehensible impossibility that it truly was.

But telling a Watcher that she had let a vampire kiss her hardly seemed like the best idea she had ever had. She had no desire to listen to recriminations, warnings, and disappointment. What she wanted, what she needed, was to understand what, why, how, and too many what if questions to which she had no answer were not helping in the slightest.

At school, she was distracted and taciturn. Cordelia was there, of course, trying to get her attention and win her friendship – doubtlessly to get Buffy to ask Giles again to help with her wishing demon – and during lunch Buffy considered telling her. She remembered, just in time, that Cordelia had very little sympathy for Spike, and would certainly not understand. If Buffy herself couldn’t, there was little chance for Cordelia to be able to make sense of any of it. She thought about only saying it had been a vampire and not mentioning a name, since it was the vampire part of the equation that was so hard to comprehend, but Cordelia’s story about how Buffy had loved a vamp in that other dimension would make things more complicated, if that was even possible. She didn’t want to have this, whatever it was, compared to what another version of herself had done in a different world. It would have made the experience _less_.

By the time the last class period of the day came to an end, Buffy had made two decisions. She wouldn’t tell anyone – there was no one she could have confided to – and she had to stop thinking about it. It would be better, much better, if she pretended that nothing had happened. She would try to stay away from Spike from now on, and be on her guards if he came to her. It couldn’t happen again. She couldn’t let it happen again. She was the Slayer, she couldn’t let a vampire get that close to her.

She couldn’t, even if just thinking about that kiss had her heart hammering in her chest faster than any hunt ever had.

Of course, it couldn’t be as simple as holding on to her resolve; she was fast learning that nothing could be simple when Spike was involved in it in any way.

She was in the middle of patrol when he first appeared – and no, she hadn’t been thinking of him, not at all. She was too busy fighting two rather slimy demons and cursing herself for not having taken her sword along. She may have become too reliant on the weapon in the little time since she had learned to use it, part of her mind analyzed coolly as she struggled to get a grip on a slippery neck to twist it and break it.

The satisfying crack finally came, seemingly too loud in the still night, and her prey collapsed when she let go of it. She turned toward the second demon, which she had sent down moments earlier with a blow to the head that had stunned it. She saw its striking claw too late to avoid the hit to her shoulder. Thrown backwards, she stumbled over the corpse of the demon she had just slain and banged her head against a headstone behind her. Her vision blackened and she fought as hard as she could not to lose consciousness, too aware that she’d die if that happened.

It took her a few seconds, when a dark figure slammed into the demon from the side, to recognize Spike. Her head still ringing from her fall, she watched, a little dazed, as he – almost literally – ripped the demon to shreds, growling the entire time. When he turned toward where she still sat on the ground, his eyes were blazing. Buffy shivered; he looked more dangerous, more feral than she had ever seen him. He stepped closer, and his face slid into his human features as his gaze ran over her, stopping for an instant at her bloodied shoulder.

“You OK?” he asked, offering her a hand.

She almost accepted his help to stand before thinking better of it and got to her feet on her own.

 _Stay away from him. Minimize contact. Do not let him get close again.  
_  
“I’m fine.”

She started turning away, but a hand on her uninjured shoulder stopped her.

“What, I don’t even get a thank you?” he asked, his tone mock-offended.

“I could have killed that thing myself,” she claimed. “You intruded on my fight. You’re not getting a thank you for that.”

It would have been more convincing, she thought, if her voice hadn’t been shaking from the pain in her shoulder and the back of her head. She might have had a concussion, too. That was the only explanation why she started backing away when Spike took slow steps toward her, his grin practically wolfish.

“You’re not fooling me, Slayer. You were in trouble, and I saved your skin. I say I deserve a reward for that. A nice reward.”

She should have known that retreating in front of him, just as she had the previous night, couldn’t possibly be good. She should have guessed the same actions would only, predictably, lead to the same results.

Maybe she did, and she didn’t care.

Something at her back stopped her – a crypt, a tree, she wasn’t sure and it didn’t matter. Spike was close, very close, and her gaze went from his eyes to his grinning lips and back as he came even closer. She closed her eyes just a second before his mouth pressed against hers.

It started as slowly as the first time, with Spike taking the lead and Buffy trying – and failing – not to lose herself in the feel of his lips and tongue. Her mind was blank but burning when she started to return the kiss. 

It reminded her of the first time she had felt Spike’s lips on her, pulling at her blood in triumphant excitement, and at the same time it couldn’t have been any more different. She had been embracing death, then, and now all she wanted was to live, and experience this, over and over, until nothing existed but the fire consuming her mind and body.

She gasped, breaking the kiss, when Spike’s left hand slid from where it was grasping her arm and splayed over her breast. Shaking her head lightly, she opened her eyes to find Spike’s just in front of her. What she saw in the midnight blue scared her, and she broke free from his hold.

“Not again,” he growled, reaching out to catch her arm.

She pulled free. “You’re right. Not again. This has to stop. We’re enemies. That’s all we are. Enemies. We can’t…do this. Not again. Never.”

She realized she was babbling at the same time as she noticed Spike was stepping toward her again. There was only one option left to her. Once more, she ran.

Night after night, the same thing happened.

It started just fine. Spike would find the Slayer, sometimes he’d patrol with her first and sometimes he’d go straight to the best part and kiss her. She’d let him, she’d even join in, and accept small touches. And then she’d snap, stop it all, and flee.

Night after night, she left Spike hard and frustrated and craving her more than he thought possible. It had been going on for a week, now, and had to stop.

This time, when he kissed her, he wrapped both arms around her, trapping her against his body. She was hot as hell, searing him wherever they touched. He wanted her so much; she was all he could think about. This time, he wouldn’t let her go. This time, he was going to take her back to his apartment, and make her his in all possible ways. This time…

He didn’t even know how she managed to get away from him. He stared at where she had escaped, stared at her lips, at the fast rise and fall of her chest as she breathed heavily, and he could have told to the second when she would start making excuses and promises to stop that she wouldn’t keep.

“Don’t. Say. A. Word,” he growled, narrowing his eyes as she opened her mouth. “I’ve heard it already. Don’t need a repeat.”

For a moment, he could almost have believed she was apologetic. But it couldn’t be. She was having too much fun playing with him. 

For once, she didn’t flee right away, stopped, maybe, by his refusal to hear her parting excuses. She watched him as he pulled out his cigarettes and lit out with hands shaking from frustration. He held her gaze the whole time. The first hit of nicotine calmed his nerves just enough that he trusted himself to speak again.

“You’re killing me!” he snapped. 

His gaze hardened even more when a smile tugged at her lips for just an instant.

“Slayer here,” she said, the same hesitant smile tinting her words. “It’s kinda my job to kill you.”

“Then do it the proper way! Shove a stake through my heart and end it, rather than playing hard to get! I’m a man, and a vamp, and I need to shag!”

If he hadn’t been so annoyed and agitated, he might have noticed that all traces of amusement had left her when she replied.

“Maybe you should stop coming to me then and find someone else. Because that’s _so_ not going to happen.”

Throwing the cigarette away in a raging gesture, he strode back to her, barely refraining from shifting to his game face.

“I don’t want someone else,” he growled, inches from her face. “I want you. I want to shag you and stop dreaming about you. I want you to be there when I go to sleep and still there when I wake up and I want to shag you any bloody time I feel like it. I barely feed anymore because I’m so obsessed with you and you don’t even see it!”

He hadn’t planned to say any of this, and he could see even as he said it that it was a mistake. The lines at the corners of her eyes or the way she suddenly stood very stiffly in front of him left no doubt about that. And still, it felt good to have it out there, to have her now exactly how much he wanted her, and how much their kisses were driving him mad.

“I think,” she said very slowly after a few seconds, “that you should stay away from me.”

Spike looked at her incredulously. “Stay away? Have you heard a bloody word—”

“I’ve heard that you’re obsessed with me,” she cut in, her tone hardening. “And I’m not liking the sound of it. The truce is off. If you keep getting in my way, I’ll stake you. I’ve had enough of your games.”

Up to that point, she had always been the one to break away when she was uncomfortable or angry with him. This time, though, she stayed where she was, arms hanging loose at her sides, her apparent relaxation completely at odds with the determined and threatening vibes coming from her. 

Spike wanted to shout at her. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to provoke her into a fight, and test whether she meant her words. He wanted, with the burning fierceness of frustration, to fuck her, again and again, until she pleaded in the same breath for him to stop and continue.

None of it would have helped anything.

With a final glare, he stormed away.


	15. In which Buffy’s past catches up with her.

The teacher’s voice droned on and on in the background, with information about poems and stanzas and rhythm and upcoming test, but none of it reached Buffy’s consciousness. Her pencil was poised over her notebook, ready to take notes, but the paper remained blank as her mind wandered.

Four days had passed since she had last seen Spike – since he had made his declaration of lust. Those strange words had shocked Buffy into realizing she couldn’t keep meeting him, or kissing him, or telling herself that him being a vamp wasn’t important since he wasn’t trying to kill her. 

Four days since she had all but promised to stake him if she saw him again. She was surprised he had actually listened to her. And as much as she didn’t want to think about it, she was starting to miss him. Miss his snark, and lips and sneaky hands.

God, she needed a boyfriend; very, very badly needed one, even if she had no time for that sort of things.

Class after class dragged on, and Buffy tried not to wonder where Spike could be hiding. It was rather lame for him to say that she was all he wanted, only to disappear without a trace. And it was even worse for her to care about it. She would have given anything to forget what his mouth had felt like, sometimes caressing hers, sometimes claiming and almost bruising. She would have given even more not to miss it.

“Judging by your face, if we were in my world, I’d say you’ve got Angel problems.”

Cordelia’s words, casual but piercing, breached Buffy’s daze as they reached together another classroom for their last period of the day. She frowned at her classmate, but couldn’t say anything before Cordelia continued.

“Of course, there’s no Angel here. So who’s your new boyfriend?”

Buffy shook her head as she sat down, and ignored Cordelia until she stopped asking stupid questions. She was the Slayer, and she was guarding the Hellmouth, which didn’t leave time for a boyfriend. And even if she had time, a vampire was hardly whom she would have chosen, regardless of what another Buffy in another dimension might have done.

This last class seemed to last forever. When it finally ended, Buffy responded distractedly to Cordelia’s goodbye and made her way to the library. Most days, she didn’t care one way or the other about training; she got enough of a workout every night as far as she was concerned. But with her inability to focus in the last few days, maybe a good training that left her too tired to think would help. Or at least, she hoped it would. Giles could be merciless when he directed her workouts, but if he thought she was tired he would insist on one of these useless meditation activities Buffy hated.

Thoughts about Spike and training disappeared together when she swung the library’s doors open and instantly froze, mind and body.

“Hello, Miss Summers,” Spencer’s smug voice called out from where he stood near the counter. “How nice of you to join us.”

Ignoring him, Buffy turned accusatory eyes toward Giles. He was a few steps away from Spencer, his glasses in hand, and looked both upset and apologetic.

“Buffy, please come in. Mr. Spencer brought instructions from the Council—”

She had heard enough. In two steps, Buffy was out of the library and striding away as fast as she could without actually running. Spencer must have convinced the Council that she needed to return to Cleveland, and judging by his satisfied look, he had come to Sunnydale to bring her back himself. From what she knew of Giles, he would follow orders and send her packing. Buffy intended to do just that, she just had no intention of going to Cleveland. She’d find another place to live in, motel if she could find the money or abandoned building if she had to; she had done it before. She’d stay out of the way until Spencer left town. That would mean missing school, and being very wary on patrol, but anything was better than going back. 

For some strange and unexplainable reason, she liked Sunnydale, demons, Hellmouth and all, and she wanted to stay there. If it came to that she’d leave and find a quieter place where Spencer – and the Council – wouldn’t find her, but she would avoid it if she could. The fleeting thought came to her that running would mean leaving Spike behind, and she pushed it away with an annoyed shake of her head. It wasn’t as though she wanted him around anyway.

Stepping outside and feeling the warmth of the sun on her face made her pause and take a deep breath. A couple of months earlier, she wouldn’t have cared one way or the other about staying in Sunnydale, going back to Cleveland or being sent somewhere else. She wouldn’t have cared much about dying on the job either. But things had changed, she had found her place, here, and even if she was still surprised about it, she didn’t intend to let go of what she had. Spencer and the Council couldn’t force her—

Warmth disappeared, replaced by shock, when she noticed Cordelia on the sidewalk talking to a blonde woman. Even after almost two years, she recognized her mother instantly, and this time her reaction was immediate. She didn’t wait for an explanation, as she had in the library. Instead, she turned left and walked fast, getting away from Joyce before she had a chance to notice her. Buffy looked back several times to check that her mother was still oblivious to her presence, and was relieved to see her walk towards the entrance of the school. 

She hurried down the street and toward Giles’ apartment. Her mind was reeling as she tried to understand how her mother could have found her. The only thing she could think of was her phone call home, the day before Spike had failed to kill her. Could it have been enough to lead to her? Obviously, if her mother was there. 

Even more shattering was that her past was catching up with her on all sides at the same time. It probably wasn’t safe to stay in Sunnydale now. Avoiding Spencer was one thing; avoiding him and her mother, something else altogether. Buffy was aware that she feared her mother more than she did a trained Watcher, or even vampires, but the irony of it never gave her pause.

She had almost expected Giles to be home when she got there, but his car was conspicuously absent from the parking lot. It was better that way. She wasn’t one for goodbyes. She pulled her duffel bag from the bottom drawer of her dresser and threw in everything that belonged to her. Crossbow. Stakes. Clothes. Hairbrush. The books and notebooks she had been in too much of a hurry to throw into her locker. All of it barely filled the bag, and she bit back a bark of hysterical laughter as she zipped it shut. It was pathetic really, that her life could fit in such a small space.

She left the room that had been hers without a back glance, and strode through the apartment the same way. She didn’t want to look back, didn’t want to start missing all of it and the illusion of normalcy she had known here. She faltered as she was reaching the door, wondering whether to leave a note for Giles, but she wouldn’t have known what to write if she had. Instead, she locked the door behind her and slid her key beneath it. He would understand.

Now, all she needed was to decide where to go.

Habit guided her steps to the closest cemetery. It was still daylight, and as she walked around marble slabs and wilting flowers, she had trouble recognizing the place. It seemed quiet and peaceful, the way it ought to always be. It was almost hard to believe that in a few hours, hunger would awaken at least one or two of the newest residents, and make them claw their way out of the earth and into the night.

She found a bench and sat there, duffel bag at her feet. She closed her eyes, and tried to clear her mind to start planning her next move, but she couldn’t. Bitterness was overwhelming her with a sense of lost opportunities. She should have known that she had been dreaming when she thought her life could continue so easily. 

And yet, if she was honest with herself, she had known all along, known it wouldn’t last and that something, or someone, would catch up with her. She had been going from place to place ever since she had been Chosen; she had never let herself believe that this time, she could really stay here, go to school, and have as much of a normal life as she could while being the Slayer.  
That didn’t make awakening from the delusion any easier.

Time passed, just as it had in class earlier, with Buffy absorbed in her thoughts and not noticing much around her. The realization that night had fallen was a surprise. The sight of Spike, only a few yards away from her, was an even bigger one.

He was leaning against a tree, a cigarette dangling from his lips in his usual fashion. His gaze hardened when their eyes met, and Buffy wondered how long he had been there, watching her without her noticing.

“So, you’re back to trying to get yourself killed then?”

Contempt was dripping from his voice, but beyond it, she could still hear concern, almost worry. Why would he be worried for her?

She had only a few seconds to wonder, and then she understood. A vampire tackled her from the side, throwing her off the bench and knocking the breath out of her as he landed on top of her. She warded off his fangs from her neck by pushing her left forearm against his throat, but he continued to hold her down, helped by his weight that was trapping her right arm beneath her. 

The stakes were there, only a few inches away, tucked in the side pocket of the duffel bag, but they might as well have been on the moon for all the help they were to Buffy.

“Tricky situation you’ve got yourself into,” Spike commented from somewhere behind her attacker. “I suppose I could help, but I remember someone promising to dust me if I got in her way.”

“I don’t need your help,” she snapped.

Taking advantage of the vampire being distracted by Spike’s little speech, she managed at last to throw him off her and quickly jumped to her feet. Spike was wrong. She didn’t want to die. Adrenaline was flowing in her, making her vision sharper, her blows stronger when she struck at the vamp, again and again, pushing him back toward the nearby trees until she was close enough to snap a branch and dust him.

She slowly turned to the sound of clapping behind her and looked at Spike. He had gotten rid of his cigarette, and if she knew him at all, he was ready for a fight.

“Nice end,” he said, “but the beginning was rather sloppy. Letting your guard down, Slayer?”

She wanted to say that it was none of his business. Or maybe throw her fist into his nose and prove that her guard was just fine, thank you very much. She also wanted to ask him where he had been, on the past four nights, and why he was back. Why he had left. Why he had listened this time - he hadn’t taken her threats seriously before.

But she didn’t say a word, nor did she strike him. Instead, she walked to him, slow steps that made his still body tense further. She knew it was a bad idea before she ever reached him or took his face between her hands, but she didn’t care anymore. The life she had built in Sunnydale was vanishing, and she needed something to cling to, something real. 

She needed, just this once, to get what she wanted.

And what she wanted was to kiss Spike.


	16. In which Spike is a gentleman (and he’ll regret that soon enough).

The revised plan, after the debacle of a few nights earlier, had been to stay away from the Slayer for a while, and then start showing up during her patrols. Slow steps to get her used to Spike’s presence again, comfortable enough to forget the threats she’d uttered. It had to be the right path. After all, it had been working rather well, until Spike lost his patience and blurted out too much.

Of course, this plan went the same way Spike’s plans usually did; it didn’t survive past the first unexpected development. When he followed the Slayer’s scent to a graveyard bench where she was sitting, oblivious to the world, not noticing him or the vamp who was crawling out of his grave behind her, the same anger he had felt when he had realized she wanted to die overtook him. He lit up a cigarette, and she looked up toward him at the clicking sound of his lighter.

“So, you’re back to trying to get yourself killed then?” he sneered.

Before she could say a word, she was on the ground, the vampire on top of her, and she was barely holding his fangs back. Spike approached, wanting nothing more than to intervene – except, maybe, to have her ask for his help.

“Tricky situation you’ve got yourself into. I suppose I could help, but I remember someone promising to dust me if I got in her way.”

She shot him a glare over her opponent’s shoulder. “I don’t need your help.”

And indeed, she managed to free herself and started pummeling that poor vampire, finally dusting him with a tree branch. Spike took a last drag on his cigarette and threw it away. He clapped his hands together, the sound drawing her attention back to him.

“Nice end, but the beginning was rather sloppy. Letting your guard down, Slayer?”

After having seen her fight her best and so nicely prove him wrong, Spike was itching for some hand to hand with her. He missed their fights, and judging by the hard look she was giving him, she was going to oblige him. She came closer and Spike readied himself. He didn’t want to hurt her – at least, not too much – and wasn’t planning on letting her hurt him, but a good fight could be nearly as satisfying as—

She didn’t strike. Instead she gently, almost delicately, cupped his face in her hands, and raised herself on her toes to kiss him. 

He was so shocked, at first, that all he could do was allow her tongue in as it pushed at the seam of his lips, and let her explore his mouth. He wondered briefly if she would pull back at the taste of nicotine mixed with remnants of whisky and blood, but if anything she kissed him even harder, her tongue driving deeper, trying to entice his to play along. Who was he to resist?

He grabbed her waist and pulled her tighter against him. She responded with a moan that seemed to make molten lava run through Spike’s veins. Her mouth was searing, but her hands, still framing his face, were gentle enough to have cradled a baby bird. The contrast was arousing and frustrating all at once, and it made Spike crave things that didn’t seem so unlikely anymore.

Without breaking the kiss, he slipped his hands behind her to cup her arse and hoist her up. Immediately, her hands dropped to clutch his shoulders and her jean clad legs came up to encircle his waist, making it easier for Spike to carry her over to the tree where she had dusted that vamp just a moment earlier. He pushed her back against it, using the leverage to grind his crotch against hers. He wanted her to know how hard she was making him.

He was afraid she would try to run off again when Buffy pushed lightly at his shoulders and dropped her legs back. His hold on her tightened, and he knew his pent-up frustration and lust had to flare in his eyes when he looked at her and gave her the same look that usually sent her fleeing away. This time, though, she merely looked back, her pupils so large they almost hid the color of her eyes. Her lips were a little bruised, and Spike leaned in to run his tongue against the bottom one.

“Not…not here,” she said, her voice very low.

Spike didn’t need to ask what she didn’t want to happen in the cemetery, but he had to ask why.

“What changed your mind? Not that I’m complaining.”

She looked away, for a brief second. The tightening of her hands where they still rested on his shoulders didn’t last any longer.

“Does it really matter?”

He had to agree that it did not. Stepping back, he arched an eyebrow at her, almost daring her to call it quits now, and for a second he thought she would when she walked away from him. But she returned from the bench with a bag slung over her shoulder, and looked at him expectantly.

“Well?” she asked, gripping his hand in hers. “Where are we going?”

Spike wasn’t sure what was more bizarre – that he was taking the Slayer to his lair to fuck her, or that she was clinging to his hand as though to a safe line as he did.

He opened the door for her and let her enter in front of him, waiting for her reaction after the long silence of their walk. She looked around the flat as he guided her toward the bedroom, eyes full of questions. But she didn’t say a word. She still didn’t talk when he slipped her bag’s strap off her shoulder or when he started undressing her, but her hands came up when her bra dropped to the floor, hiding her lovely breasts after giving Spike a too short glimpse.

With a grin that made her blush, he took both her hands in his and spread her arms out on each side of her. Her small, firm breasts exposed but her jeans and boots still on, blushing brightly as she refused to meet his eyes, she was the picture of innocence about to be surrendered. Her blush, her skittishness could only mean one thing, and this one thing was making Spike positively gleeful.

“You’re a virgin, aren’t you, luv?” he purred. He tilted her head up toward him with a finger beneath her chin, but still she refused to meet his eyes. “You couldn’t have chosen better for your first time.”

The same finger slid down her throat and came to circle one puckered nipple, then the other. The tremor he expected came, but the wave of desire he had thought would accompany it was completely absent. Instead, she smelled like… It took him a moment to recognize it, because it wasn’t anything he had ever detected on her, not when they had fought, not even when he had been seconds away from killing her. 

Her scent was pure, unadulterated fear. 

Fear of him or fear of what they were doing, Spike didn’t know. What he did know was that no one could wear this scent and be ready to enjoy sex.

“What the hell…”

He pulled his hand back as though burned. He wanted her, God only knew how much he did, but not like that. Not if she was only pretending to be interested, and was too scared to enjoy it.

“Fuck!”

She opened wide, surprised eyes at his exclamation, and even took a step back from him, bringing her arms back in front of her to cover herself.

“What bloody game are you playing?” he snarled, angry with her for being afraid, and with himself for letting that stop him. “What’s going on? Why are you here if you’re _that_ bloody scared of me?”

The change in her features was instantaneous. Her face closed, shutting out all emotions, and she quickly picked up her discarded t-shirt and slipped it on.

“I am _not_ scared of you,” she said through clenched teeth, but did not explain herself further.

She grabbed her bag from the floor and started putting the strap on her shoulder, but Spike caught it and pulled it free from her grasp.

“What’s this?” he demanded as he pulled the zipper open. “You need your wardrobe with you when you slay, now?”

She tried to take the bag from him, and a few items of clothing fell out, revealing a crossbow, stakes, books and notebooks. Understanding flashed through Spike’s mind like lightning.

“You don’t have anywhere else to go,” he said flatly. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Of course not,” she protested, but the fight seemed to drain right out of her and her hands fell from the strap of the bag. 

“Liar.”

Picking up whatever had fallen from her bag, he stuffed it back in and stalked out of the room. There was another bedroom in the apartment, smaller than the one he had claimed as his. He kicked the door open, barely restraining his rage, and threw the bag onto the bed. Some dust rose from the blanket.

“What are you doing?” she asked behind him.

Spike turned to face her and glared for all he was worth. “I’d rather have you spend the night in a dusty room than on a bench.”

“I don’t want—” she started, but he took a step closer to her until he was looming over her and cut in.

“Why aren’t you with your Watcher?” he asked, aware that he was revealing he knew where she had been living until now and not giving a damn. “Old man’s a pervert? Tried to take you to his bed?”

“Of course not,” she replied, clearly shocked. “It’s…complicated. I just can’t live there anymore.”

Her eyes slid toward the spare bedroom, then, hesitantly, back toward Spike.

“Just for a night,” she said quietly. “I’ll find a place tomorrow.”

Spike said nothing and just let her go in. She closed the door behind her, and he could hear her prop some kind of furniture against it. He shook his head and let out a quiet growl. Didn’t she realize that he could have taken her already, consenting or not, and that a closed door wouldn’t stop him if he changed his mind?

Couldn’t she see that he _wouldn’t_ change his mind?

He remained by the door for a little while, listening intently. Quiet steps. The sound of her boots hitting the floor. The swish of a hand hitting fabric, a cough and a sneeze. The squeaking of an old bedspring. Then nothing but her heartbeat and breathing.

Closing his hands into tight fists and loosening them again several times, Spike walked through the living room, picking up his duster from where he had left it earlier on the back of the sofa, and slipped it on as he walked out. He locked the door, more to keep the Slayer safe than to prevent her from leaving, and started walking at a quick pace through the deserted streets of Sunnydale. 

She had denied it when Spike had suggested it, but part of him was sure that her Watcher must have done something to send her off. There were rumors circulating in vampire circles of what Watchers did to ensure that their Slayers listened to them.

If the bastard had touched her, Spike would kill him. Slowly.

But when Spike pounded on the man’s door until he opened, when he accused him bluntly of molesting the Slayer, the shock on the Watcher’s face mirrored that of his charge earlier. Spike calmed down, barely, and sneered at the crossbow in the man’s shaky hands.

“Where is Buffy?” the Watcher asked. His hold on the weapon steadied a little as he aimed for Spike’s heart. “What did you do to her?”

“If she ran off on you, why would I answer?” Spike replied with a hard look. “What did _you_ do to chase her off?”

The Watcher shook his head. “I did nothing. If she had stayed, I could have explained…” Slowly, he lowered the crossbow until it pointed at the floor, giving Spike a wary look as though an impassable barrier of thin air had not been standing between them. “Could you…could you give her a message from me?”

Spike remained pokerfaced and did not answer one way or the other.

“Please tell her that the council wants her back in Cleveland but I’ll do anything to help her stay here if that’s what she wants.”

Spike frowned. “That’s what spooked her? Your bloody Council?”

He didn’t understand it. He had never seen her as scared as she had been that night, and all that because of a band of wankers who wanted her to go back to bloody Cleveland?

“It’s part of it, yes, but I think there’s more.” Once more, he paused and considered Spike thoughtfully. “Her mother is in town, and I think Buffy may have seen her. She walked into the library just moment after Buffy left. She knew Buffy stayed with me, and she said she wouldn’t leave town without her. She threatened to get the police involved. Will you tell her that too?”

Spike shrugged and turned away. “Maybe,” he threw over his shoulder. “Maybe not.”

“Where is she?” the Watcher tried a last time, but Spike walked away without answering. 

If the Slayer wanted to hide from her Watcher and mum, he’d hide her. And maybe the next time he undressed her, she wouldn’t be so damn scared of him anymore.


	17. In which a slow dance starts.

As it always happened when she slept in an unfamiliar place, Buffy woke in the time of a heartbeat. Immediately aware of her surroundings, she sat up and looked at the door. She had left the lamp beside the bed on its lowest setting, and it cast enough light for her to see that Spike had not come in, or even tried. She had wedged a chair behind the doorknob, both to slow him if he tried to enter, and to make sure she awakened right away. The chair was still in place.

She got to her feet and the heels of her boots made a dull noise on the dusty hardwood floor. Buffy had kept her clothes and shoes on when lying down to rest, ready to fight, or flee, at a moment’s notice. She had eventually fallen asleep but her fitful sleep had not been very restful, and she yawned widely as she walked over to the door. She stopped by the chair for an instant, listening intently. She could hear noises somewhere in the apartment, but not distinctly enough to know what they were. As quietly as she could, she pulled the chair away, opened the door and walked out, following the sounds to what turned out to be the open floor kitchenette. 

She couldn’t help but stare at the sight of Spike standing in front of the cooking range with her back to her. It had never occurred to her that vampires could possibly cook. He didn’t turn to look at her, but he tilted his head as though he had heard something, then his left arm rose and indicated a door to the side.

“Bathroom’s in there. Breakfast in five minutes.”

Without a word, she tiptoed to the door he had indicated and locked it behind her. She had intended to do no more than relieve herself and wash her face, but the folded towels on the edge of the sink tempted her when she washed her hands. She felt tense, her muscles aching as though she had fought all night. A hot shower might help. With a glance at the door and its flimsy lock, she undressed hurriedly and stepped into the stall. She would be quick.

The water started almost icy and she gasped, startled, but after only seconds it warmed up until it was almost too hot to stand. She eyed the bottle of flower scented shower gel warily. That didn’t look like something Spike would use, so whose was it? Trying not to think about it too much, she soaped herself up quickly then simply stood beneath the spray, rolling her shoulders lightly as the water washed off the soap. She wished her tension and exhaustion could have disappeared down the drain as well.

Turning off the water and stepping out of the stall was difficult; she could have stayed under the warm jet all day. She dried off quickly, her eyes darting now and then to the door, and grimaced when she realized she hadn’t thought of bringing a change of clothes. Too late now. She certainly wasn’t going to cross the apartment in a towel. Who knew what message that would have sent Spike.

She had managed to keep her hair dry for the most part, and more by habit than anything else, she pulled the elastic band away and reached for the hairbrush on the side of the sink. Again, she tried not to wonder whom the few long blond hairs caught in it belonged to as she gave a few quick brushstrokes. She braided her hair with practiced ease, then took a deep breath before wiping the steam off the mirror with her hand. The girl who stared back at her had deep dark circles beneath her eyes, the same circles that had disappeared since she had started living a more normal life in Sunnydale. They had been quick to return, and they symbolized all too clearly the changes that she would need to make—that she had already started making—and that she had tried not to think about until now. 

When she had composed herself, she unlocked the door and left the bathroom to return to the kitchenette. Spike was leaning against the countertop. Next to him, a kettle was just starting to whistle. He picked it up and poured boiling water in a mug waiting on the table in front of a plate of scrambled eggs.

“Do you like eggs?”

The question was so unexpected that Buffy couldn’t find anything to answer.

“You’d better like them, because that’s the only thing I can cook. That and tea, but an Englishman can brew tea in his sleep.”

He looked up just as he finished talking, and she could see from his expression that he hadn’t intended to say so much. His lips twisted into a wry smile.

“And of course I’ll have to kill you if you reveal my shameful secret to anyone.”

Buffy blinked, again trying to make sense of what was happening, and failing. Was he actually joking with her? Had she inadvertently stepped into a different dimension?

“Well?” Spike asked, his features smoothing over into a cold mask. “Are you going to sit down or not?”

She realized she was probably being rude, standing still and remaining silent after he had offered her food, and she looked down as she slipped into the chair. It was only when she took her first bite of eggs that a small voice asked why it mattered that she was rude to a vampire. She pushed the voice away, along with any thoughts unrelated to food. She hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the previous day, and she felt ravenous. The eggs were simple, with a bit of pepper and maybe another spice added to them, but to Buffy’s empty stomach they felt like the most scrumptious feast.

She was aware of Spike’s eyes on her as she ate, but she refused to look at him. She wasn’t sure what she would see if she did, and she wasn’t sure either that she wanted to know.

Having finished the eggs in what had to be record time, she cautiously picked up the mug and pulled out the tea packet. She blew over the steaming liquid before bringing it to her lips, and grimaced at the strong taste.

“Why is it,” she sighed, “that all the men in my life try to make me drink tea, but never ask if I want sugar in it?”

As she glanced at him, Spike grabbed a small sugar canister on the countertop behind him and placed it in front of her. 

“Maybe they think you’re old enough to get it for yourself if you want it.”

The words seemed innocent enough, but when she looked up to meet his eyes, they took a whole different meaning and she had to look away again, flustered.

_Confusion, thy name is Buffy.  
_

*

If Spike was to believe the speed with which she all but inhaled the eggs, the Slayer was famished, but when he suggested cooking more, she declined his offer. He continued to watch her sip on her tea, aware that his gaze was making her uncomfortable but not caring about that.

He had expected her to bolt as soon as she woke up, so to see her in no apparent hurry to leave, was a pleasant surprise. Now he needed to decide whether to tell her he had spoken to her Watcher, and if so how much to reveal. In the end, it was his desire to know more that helped him decide. If he made her talk about it, he might understand why she had been spooked enough to throw herself at him.

The thought sent a flash of need coursing through him. Her scent was slowly permeating the apartment, subtle but unmistakable, and he was beginning to regret not bedding her. If he could only keep her there and work his way toward a second chance, he was determined not to let it pass again.

She had finished her tea, and from the way she started looking around and growing restless, Spike guessed that she would be standing soon. Lighting up a cigarette, he sat across from her at the table.

“I went to see your Watcher, last night.”

Her eyes, which had been looking anywhere but at him until now, focused instantly on him and narrowed. She leaned forward, her body tensing.

“What for?”

“Wanted to know if I needed to kill him for touching you.”

The immense shock on her face and in her eyes put to rest, if need be, the last threads of doubt Spike still had about this particular possibility. 

“So, I was right about not killing him, then?” he asked after a few seconds when she still hadn’t said a word.

“You asked last night, and I told you he didn’t—” She interrupted herself to make a face. “That’s just gross. He’s old enough to be my father!”

Spike snorted around his cigarette. “And I could be your great, great grand-da. That didn’t seem to bother you so much last night.”

The shock transformed into embarrassment as she blushed and looked away. Spike waited for her to make some kind of comment including the word ‘mistake’, but instead she changed the topic back to her Watcher.

“What did Giles say? Did you tell him I was here?”

“No.” That simple word seemed to relieve her. “And he blabbered about convincing his Council to let you stay in Sunnydale.”

The frown was brief, but Spike was watching her too closely not to notice. Shaking her head, she brought her eyes back to meet his.

“Why would they listen to him and not to Spencer?” she asked, though Spike doubted she expected an answer from him. “I can’t go back to him. They’re going to watch him and they’d snatch me if I went back.”

She stopped there, but Spike heard what she wasn’t saying. He waited a little longer, to see if she’d ask, but she didn’t look like she would. The scar on her mouth was becoming paler as she pinched her lips tight.

“You can stay,” he finally answered the unvoiced question. “As long as you want.”

She gave a brief nod, but did not explicitly say whether she would stay or not, and Spike caught himself wondering. He had realized, the previous night, that she had come to him as a last resort. He had no illusions that she’d move out as soon as she found a better alternative. For a Slayer, there had to be few options less attractive than living with a vampire. Even taking a risk with her Watcher could be less dangerous than staying with a vamp who had tried to kill her in the past, or so Spike supposed. Maybe she needed a bit more convincing. 

She was just starting to stand when Spike decided to see how she’d react to the other piece of news he had for her.

“The Watcher said something about your mother, too. Said she was in town and raising hell to get to you.”

Her hands were shaking when she sat down again, looking for all the world as though he had just kicked the breath out of her. This was going to be interesting.


	18. In which we find a pizza, a key, nightmares, a couple of talks and maybe scones, although not necessarily in that order.

“The Watcher said something about your mother, too. Said she was in town and raising hell to get to you.”

Her legs threatened to disappear beneath Buffy and she sat back down, hard.

She had tried so much not to think about seeing her mother the previous day that to hear Spike so casually talk about her was a shock. A nasty one. The prospect that she had talked to Giles was hardly any better.

“What did Giles say?” she asked. Her throat was dry, suddenly, and she found herself wishing that she had not finished her tea.

Spike observed her curiously from across the table. She could tell that he had questions, and she expected they would come soon enough, but for now she needed to know how bad it was.

“Well?” she prompted when he hadn’t answered after a handful of seconds.

“The Watcher didn’t say much, really. Mostly that she knew you were staying with him, and that she wants to see you. The cops might have been mentioned, too.”

Buffy’s stomach started rebelling against the food she had ingested, and for a moment she was sure she would throw up. If her mother was threatening Giles with the intervention of the police, Buffy couldn’t go back to him, whether or not he had truly convinced the Council to let her stay in Sunnydale. She wasn’t even sure she ought to get out of the apartment at all. She knew what would happen if she was caught, and the idea was making her sick. They would know how much to drug her to keep her inoffensive, if she was sent back. There would be no chance for another escape. She’d spend the rest of her life there, stoned days and nights, and dreaming even with her eyes wide open of demons she ought to have slain and people she couldn’t save from death.

“I’m not getting used to it,” Spike said out of the blue.

Buffy started; she had almost forgotten where she was for a moment, while revisiting old memories better left untouched. 

On her blank look, Spike explained himself, rubbing at his nose absently. “Fear. You reek of it. Are you going to explain why your mum scares you that much? She can’t be worse than the demons you kill every night.”

With a joyless laugh, Buffy made an effort and stood. “She doesn’t believe in demons.”

She was about to add that she wasn’t afraid, but she doubted Spike would believe her, not when he claimed he could smell her fear. The idea made her grimace as she walked back to the room where she had spent the night. It was icky, there was no other word for it. And who knew what else he could smell on her.

Distracting herself with thoughts of her host, she closed the door behind her, and carefully placed the chair back against it. 

And immediately regretted it.

In the small room, there wasn’t much for her to do other than ruminate on the news Spike had given her. She still had trouble believing the Council would leave her to do what she pleased, but even worrying about them did not chase away thoughts of her mother, and what would happen if she found Buffy. Not if, when. How could she not, when she had tracked Buffy to Sunnydale and to Giles? How had she known? That phone call home had probably been a bad idea, but there had to be more if she had gone straight to Sunnydale High and to Giles.

In the hope of calming her reeling mind, Buffy lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, breathing in slowly as her first Watcher had tried to teach her. It didn’t do much for her mind, but after her bad night, it wasn’t long until she fell asleep.

*

_The asylum felt smaller, somehow, the walls tighter around her. She watched herself walk through room after room, looking for air and enough space to breathe, arms wrapped around her to keep herself from shaking. Everything seemed a little blurry around her, softer on the edges, and from that alone part of her knew that she’d just been drugged. They always doubled the dose on visit days, though in her dazed state she had no idea that it was visit day._

_She found a window, at long last, and leaned against it. The glass was cool against her forehead. Behind it, she could see green forms, and beyond that a bit of gray that she knew was a wall. Beyond the wall, her life waited._

_The first voice was masculine, soft and cajoling as it called her name. Buffy turned sideways, keeping her temple against the glass. Her father smiled at her and raised his hand to caress her face. The smile and hand disappeared when she recoiled sharply, hitting the back of her head against the window frame._

_Her mother spoke next, leaning in close, murmuring words that ought to have been comforting. Words that promised, always promised, air and blue skies and home. But Buffy had learned not to believe the words anymore. Even drugged, she knew better than to believe. Refusing to listen, she faced the window again, and softly, not to hurt herself but rather to drown the sound of the treacherous words, she started banging her forehead against the glass.  
_

*

Buffy awoke with a jolt as the banging in her head was echoed by the loud knocking on the door.

“What?” she called out, a hand to her chest as she willed her heart to calm down.

“Dinner’s getting cold,” was Spike’s improbable answer.

Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she looked around the room for a clock and found nothing. She couldn’t believe that she had slept that long. And yet when she stepped out of the bedroom, wary and her heart still pounding from walls being too close around her, the clock on the kitchen wall claimed it was almost seven. Her stomach growled at the sight of the pizza box on the table, so it wasn’t so unlikely after all.

She didn’t sit down at the table, but she did open the box to find a plain cheese pizza. She pulled out a slice without much enthusiasm. Maybe she ought to tell Spike what she liked, for next time. If there was a next time.

“Had a nice nap?” Spike asked from behind her.

She half turned to look at him. His words had been too casual, and the lack of feelings reflected on his face made her wonder how he knew she had been sleeping, or what she smelled like to him now, with the nightmare still clinging to her.

“Yeah,” she answered wryly, not bothering to hide the lie. “Nice nap.” She gestured to the pizza box with her freehand to get his attention off her. “You’re not eating?”

His eyebrow cocked as though something amused him greatly. “I had my dinner already.”

Too late, she remembered what it was that constituted his diet, and as she pushed what remained of her lone slice down her throat, she tried very hard not to wonder if the delivery guy had left with his life on top of a tip.

“So, you’re going to stay in tonight?” Spike asked when she turned to the sink to gulp down a large drink of water. “Stay out of sight in case your mum—”

“No.”

The word slipped out before she even thought. The walls had seemed closer around her since she had awakened, and she couldn’t imagine staying cloistered in all night. She could imagine even less what she would do, stuck in a too small apartment with Spike.

“I’ve got to go patrol.”

She would have thought he’d suggest she shouldn’t, or that he’d remind her again that her mother might very well be out there, or someone who worked for her. Instead, he threw something at her, and only when she caught it, by pure reflex more than real design, did Buffy realize what it was. She raised her gaze from the small key to him, and he shrugged at her silent question.

“In case I’m not here when you come back.”

She wanted to claim that she wouldn’t be coming back, that he was a vampire and that anything was better than to get that close to the enemy. She wanted to leave the key on the table, grab her bag and just leave. But when she did walk out of the apartment, the tiny sliver of metal was in her jeans’ pocket, where she could feel it with every long stride she took. And the idea that she had a place to go back to before morning, a place where she could sleep again once she had chased the nightmares away with a long patrol, a place that wasn’t cold, or wet, or smelly – well, that idea was much more comforting than it had any right to be with Spike stuck somewhere in the equation.

*

Spike counted three minutes after the Slayer had left before he followed, locking the door behind him with a spare key. It wasn’t hard to find her trail, not when her scent was such a unique mix of panic and determination.

He had almost asked her what it was she had been dreaming about all afternoon. The moans of protest and whimpers that had filtered through the door had been hard enough for him to bear, but her scent when she had emerged from that bedroom had screamed “nightmares” too loudly for him to ignore it. As skittish as she was, though, still watching him as though wondering whether to leave or stake him first, she probably wouldn’t have taken too well to a question about what beasties haunted her sleep. And after the way she had reacted to mentions of her mother, Spike could make a good guess anyway.

If she had been in her right mind, she would have noticed him at once, he was sure of it. But with her distraction, all he had to do was stay far enough and he could observe her as she dusted one vamp after another without her usual games or lame jokes. The fear that still hung in the air around her was the best bait to attract vamps. Spike wondered if she even realized that, and started worrying whether she would attract more vampires than she could handle. 

The feeling – worrying for a Slayer – wasn’t anything he’d have ever thought he’d feel. Then again, he would never have imagined he would ever be sheltering his sworn enemy either, or waiting for her to relax around him before he made his move. The more he thought about it, about how warm she had been in his arms, how soft beneath his fingers, the more he regretted not having taken her the night before. Even if she had been scared, he could have made her forget that fear, forget everything and just want him. He knew he could have. And trying to understand why he hadn’t was killing him.

Distracted by thoughts of naked limbs wrapping around him while he teased at the scar barring a fiery little mouth, he got too close to her while she was fighting a couple of vamps. As soon as they were dust falling at her feet, she whirled toward Spike, her stake raised and the expression on her face deadly. She remained like that long enough that Spike thought she’d attack before she slowly lowered her arm.

“What was the point of giving me a key if you’re going to follow?” she asked, and Spike couldn’t have told whether she was amused or annoyed.

He tried to think fast – telling her he was worried about her was simply not an option. 

“Just thought I’d take you shopping,” he said as nonchalantly as he could when a minute earlier he had been thinking of burying himself in her body. “Unless you plan to live on eggs, tea and pizza.”

She didn’t answer to that, or at least, not verbally. Instead, she fished the apartment key out of her pocket and threw it at Spike. He caught it easily enough and looked a question back at her.

“I can’t do it,” she said as she shook her head. “I can’t live with you when I _know_ you killed the apartment’s owner, or when I wonder whether the pizza guy was your dinner. You’re a vampire, I should dust you, not live with you or let you cook for me or kiss—” By the way she cut herself short and flushed, she hadn’t planned to say that last part. “Anyway, it lasted too long already and I’ve got to stop thinking you can help because you’re part of the problem, not the solution.”

Spike waited a few more seconds to make sure she had finished her piece, and then he raised a finger.

“The previous occupant of the apartment was a vampire. ‘Didn’t know you cared if I killed those.”

A second finger went up.

“If I killed the delivery guy, how would I get a delivery next time I want some wings? And where exactly would I stash the body and not have the building infected by cops?”

Third finger.

“I don’t see how you starving yourself or sleeping on a bench will make you a better Slayer. And kissing me…” He let his eyes trail over her body for a moment. “Kissing or anything else for that matter… It doesn’t hurt anyone, now, does it?”

He thought he would get a smile, but at a waggle of his eyebrow she turned away and took off in an all too familiar fashion. Lighting up a cigarette, he watched her leave, knowing better than to go after her now. With a shrug, he started walking and was soon out of the cemetery. There was a convenience shop on his way to the apartment, and the cashier had learned not to bother asking him for money on his way out. It would have been easier with the Slayer there, of course, but by plucking random food items from the shelves he figured that he was bound to pick up at least a couple things that she actually liked and earn himself some gratitude. And if by some chance he didn’t… he wondered if it would be worth trying to remember how to bake scones.


	19. In which we discover the amazing power of scones.

With vampires running in her direction as though craving death, the night passed more quickly than most for Buffy. Before she knew it – and before she had made up her mind about leaving Sunnydale to avoid her mother, or staying and finding a better place to hide – the sky darkened one last time, night’s last stand in its lost battle against day. 

It had been a long time since Buffy had stayed out long enough to watch the sun rise, and this time she did so while sitting on the wall bordering Resting Shadows cemetery. After complete darkness, the colors were intense, a cascade of pinks and oranges that seemed deeper than back in Cleveland, and the sight made her eyes water. It was difficult, sometimes, to remember that there were still beautiful things in the world when all she saw night after night were blood and demons. With a sigh, she jumped off the wall, tucked her hands deep inside her pockets and made her way back to Spike’s apartment.

She was still surprised that he had let her go so easily, earlier that night. It was slowly becoming clear that he was as stubborn, if not more, in pursuing her than in wanting her dead. The only jarring note in his behavior was that he hadn’t tried to kiss her, or do anything else, since first bringing her to his lair. That did not mesh with the rest of his attitude, so clearly directed at getting her in his bed, and it left Buffy extremely wary of what he had in mind. It also gave way to half-formed regrets and what-if questions that she refused to examine too closely. In these conditions, she had better get away from him, before he jumped on her – or she on him – even if she didn’t know where she’d go.

She had been about to knock but instead, just to try, rested her hand on the door handle. It gave way without resistance, and she walked in as silently as she knew how. She would just grab her bag, she told herself, and then leave again. She’d hitchhike a ride out of town and find someone to drive her north or east, whichever came first, and figure things out after that. She didn’t really want to go, but with her mother in town and no place to hide, the risk was too great.

The weight of her duffel bag, when she picked it up from the floor in what had been her room, had her stomach lurching quite unpleasantly. She didn’t need to look inside to know it was empty. Was that Spike’s idea of a practical joke? Did he think he could keep her there by stealing her meager possessions?

She saw the crossbow first, hanging from a nail in the wall. Buffy could have sworn there had been a framed poster hanging there earlier. Beneath it, resting on top of the dresser, the books and notebooks she had shoved in her bag when rushing back from school were piled up in an uneven stack. The first drawer of the dresser wasn’t completely closed, and something black was peeking out. Walking to it, Buffy discovered that the drawer contained her t-shirts and tops. The second drawer held her pants and jeans. The last one – she _so_ was going to dust Spike for messing with her underwear. 

She noticed, just as she was wondering what game he had played by putting her clothes away in the dresser, that there was considerably less dust on the floor and furniture. And the sheets and cover on the bed were different – and clean. The fight drained out of her in a flash and she sat down on the edge of the bed, taking her head in her hands. The invitation to stay was clear, and a vibrant reminder as well that she had nowhere else to go. Or at least, no place where she would have felt safe. As paradoxical as it was, even with a vampire sleeping in the next room, she did feel safe. She wasn’t sure whether it was because Spike had almost killed her but failed to finish, or despite his unsuccessful attempt at taking her life. What she did know was that he had no equal to make her doubt her own sanity.

She would make up her mind after getting a bit of sleep, she decided. Surely, a little rest could do nothing but help clear up her head.

Sliding her boots off, she considered taking her clothes off as well. She had slept in them the previous night, and after two days wearing the same thing her skin practically crawled. On the other hand, she didn’t dare be unprepared in case Spike attacked. She’d change in the morning.

But when she rested her head on the pillow, a hard lump beneath it made her frown and sit up again. She knew what the object was as soon as she closed her hand around it, and it was with some disbelief that she pulled out the stake from beneath the pillow.

Another message from Spike, she supposed.

When she was done laughing, she tucked the stake back in place and undressed, pulling on an oversized flannel shirt in lieu of sleepwear, and fell asleep like a child.

*

Spike had remained awake the entire night, waiting for the Slayer to return. If nothing else, she would need her things back, although he hoped she would realize she had no other place to go and decide to stay. When the door finally creaked open in the small hours of the morning, he listened intently to her steps across the apartment, and to the intense silence that followed. A spark of laughter startled him, and while he wondered what in his little preparations had caused it, he guessed it meant she would stay at least one more day. One more chance for him to chip at her defenses, if he was careful enough not to send her hiding behind stubborn walls.

It was long past noon when she emerged from her room, her hair in disarray and a bundle of clothes in her arms. She walked fast, but Spike caught a glimpse of lovely legs as she made her way to the bathroom. The click of the lock put an abrupt end to his daydream of following her.

He stayed put on the sofa, the telly still chattering in front of him, but kept an ear out for her. The shower was quick, probably barely long enough for the water to warm up, and left little time for Spike to imagine cascading water over muscled limbs. After that, everything went quiet for a little while, and when she finally stepped out she was sadly enough entirely clothed, blue jeans and white t-shirt covering too much for Spike’s taste.

He met her gaze as she walked back to her room, and she looked away almost immediately, hurrying a little more. Spike rolled his eyes as he looked back at the television. He should have known she wouldn’t acknowledge anything he had done for her while she was patrolling. Stubborn little Slayer. He would break through her resistance soon enough, or so he hoped.

She was out of her room again after only a few seconds, and Spike listened to her walk into the kitchen and open the fridge and cupboards. A thank you would have been nice, he reflected as he listened to her warm up what smelled like pizza, but she still didn’t say anything, and stayed in the kitchen for her lunch.

When she was finished, she finally came to Spike, and sat on the armchair further away from him, curling her legs beneath her and holding a pillow to her chest as though in protection.

“You didn’t have to buy all that stuff,” she said after a few minutes of pretending she had any interest in the show Spike was pretending to watch.

Spike suppressed a sigh before it could pass his lips. He should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.

“I didn’t have to leave the door unlocked either,” he countered, “but I don’t hear you complain about that.”

She lowered her head, and from somewhere behind the pillow, he heard something that sounded extraordinarily like a thank you. He looked at her, curious to know if she had really said it, but before he could ask she raised her head again and met his eyes.

“Why do you do all this?”

A flash of irritation coursed through Spike and he reached for the cigarettes on the seat next to him. That girl could drive him insane with a few words.

“If you can’t figure it out for yourself,” he said, practically barking his words, “I’m probably an idiot to even talk to you at all.”

“I know you want to fuck me,” she hissed. “But you could have, and you didn’t, and now you’re not even trying anything. So I’m confused. And yes, you’re an idiot.”

She really _was_ confused, he realized, and not merely playing with him. It calmed his anger enough that he shook his head and laughed quietly.

“Even if you’re confused, can’t possibly be as much as I am.”

If anything, his words seem to puzzle her even more, but Spike was in no mood to explain himself. Maybe they would figure things out together.

He went back to watching whatever show was now being broadcasted, but even then he continued to look at the Slayer from the corner of his eye. She hadn’t moved and was still looking in his direction as though trying to figure out a riddle. She could look all she wanted, he had nothing to hide. 

“I’m not saying I’m going to stay here,” she said after a few minutes, her voice quiet but strong. “Maybe I’ll leave later today.”

He was sure he could hear a hint of challenge in her words, and when he faced her, her face gave the same impression. Was she trying to convince him, or herself?

“And maybe you won’t,” he said in an exhalation of smoke. “Suppose we’ll see when we get there.”

She fell quiet once again for a little while, but Spike knew it wouldn’t last. She was still confused, and from what he had learned about her since their first fight, she disliked not understanding what was going on in front of her. She would try to chip at him until she was satisfied she knew what was in his head.

“You’re one strange vampire.”

Blinking, Spike turned once more his eyes to her. He wasn’t sure if that had been an insult or a compliment. She had angled herself toward the television however, and he couldn’t read anything on her face. It was all right. ‘Strange’ was a first step. There’d hopefully be more interesting words soon.

*

Buffy would have been hard pressed to explain how she came to be sitting on the kitchen table, her legs and arms wrapped around Spike while his hands cupped her face just so for the most amazing kiss. 

She had followed him a few minutes after he had wandered off to the kitchen, and observed him battle a bowl full of ingredients with a wooden spoon. She hadn’t been able to suppress a laugh at the sight of his black t-shirt turned gray by flour, and he had flashed her a dirty look through eyes that were more golden than blue. And then… Then she had found herself in this position, and truly she couldn’t find much to protest about. Not when Spike’s tongue stroked hers like this, or when his hands were so incredibly gentle despite holding her firmly in place.

And even though that stupid, nagging little voice tried to remind her that there’d be nowhere to flee once it became too much, she enjoyed the kiss, and his touch, and hoped despite reason that neither would end.

It did, of course, after what seemed like an eternity – much too fast. She wasn’t sure who broke away first. She continued to cling to Spike, her forehead pressed to his shoulder, so dizzy she was certain that if she let go now she would fall. His hands moved to her back and stroked lightly, first over the fabric of her top, then sliding beneath it. She shivered at the feeling of his fingers exploring her skin. She wished it hadn’t been on a place as innocent as her back. She remembered his hands on her, on her first night in the apartment. She had been too close to panic to enjoy it fully, but if he tried again now, if he took her to his room…

The thought had sneaked up on her so quietly that she was startled when it came to the forefront of her mind. Instinctively, she pulled back from Spike even as she pushed him away from her more forcefully than she would have wanted. She slid off the table and took a couple of steps away, only then daring to raise her eyes to meet his. He didn’t look as angry as she expected.

She had to open and close her mouth a couple of times before she could manage to utter a word.

“I…I can’t,” she said. 

Spike only raised an eyebrow at her.

“We shouldn’t,” she insisted. “It’s not right.”

“That’s what you said about living here,” he replied, the smallest smirk pulling at his lips. “And still, there you are.”

She took another step back, certain that he was going to push for more. But all he did was grimace as he adjusted himself – and no, Buffy did not stare at how much his tight jeans revealed of his anatomy, not at all – then pick up his bowl and spoon again, and proceed to make more of a mess.

Buffy shifted from one foot to the other for a while, wanting to walk away from him and yet mystified by the way he appeared to have given up. From what she had learned from having fought against him for months now, he never gave up. He only changed his plans on how to get what he wanted. So what was he scheming now?

When she still hadn’t made up her mind after a few moments, he tilted his head toward the cupboards behind him.

“Make yourself useful at least. See if you can find a baking pan in there.”

Still suspicious, she kept an eye on him as she looked for that pan, then just as warily watched him grease it up and spread the lumpy dough he had mixed in it. Surely, he would give up his pretense of cooking soon, and try to kiss her again. He wasn’t fooling her for a second. 

She had to wait until the scones were in the oven to be proved right, and Spike didn’t seem all that upset when they burned.


	20. In which they’re back to fighting. Kinda.

Curled up in an armchair, hugging a pillow against her chest, a vampire lounging a few steps away, Buffy watched a very boring television show with an eerie sense of déjà vu. 

Just like the day before, she had come back from patrol in the small hours of the morning. This time the lateness had been due to repeated interruptions from Spike, who had apparently decided that every vampire turning to dust deserved to be celebrated with a nice kissing session. It had certainly helped Buffy’s motivation, but not her effectiveness. 

He had tried to follow her into her room when they had returned to his apartment, stopping only when she had reminded him of the stake beneath her pillow. She could tell he had been frustrated when she had closed the door on him, but whatever he thought, he had kept quiet about it. Even after she had walked out of her room in the early afternoon for a shower and a late lunch before joining him in front of the television he had not said a word. His continued silence was becoming jarring, especially when the show in front of them defied all measures of lameness.

She threw a glance at him, annoyed by his quietness, and discovering with some surprise he was watching her rather than the television. Flustered, she frowned, her body growing tense.

“What?” she snapped.

Her tone didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. “Do you plan to go back to school?”

The question was so completely unexpected that she gaped at him for a few instants before managing an answer.

“I…No. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged as though he did not care, but that did not fool her. If he asked, he had to have a reason.

“Was wondering about those books you took with you. That’s a lot of useless weight to carry around if you were planning to leave town in the first place.”

Buffy’s first instinct was to say that she hadn’t thought when packing her bag, and that she had thrown in everything she could lay her hands on. But if she was honest with herself, she knew it had run deeper than that. Before she had become a Slayer, the only redeeming aspect of school in her eyes had been the social interactions it provided her with. After two years of not attending, it had become something different. Returning there thanks to Giles’ help had brought to her the much-needed feeling that she wasn’t completely out of the world, that she still had a place amongst young people her own age, even if she hadn’t really made friends. It had also given her something to think about other than vampires 

“I hoped,” she started, and then realized whom she was talking to. She doubted a vampire would understand her desire to be more normal. “It doesn’t matter. I thought I might go back, but I can’t.”

Spike’s eyes felt heavy on her. If she hadn’t known any better she would have believed he could read her thoughts when he said, not unkindly:

“You can’t because your mother knew to look for you there and she might come back. Is that it?”

Reluctantly, Buffy nodded.

“I still don’t get why you don’t want to see her,” Spike continued as he sat up from reclining on the sofa. “Even if she’s a bitch, you shouldn’t be afraid of her. You’re the Slayer.”

Buffy snorted. He said that word as though it gave her powers that mere mortals did not possess – which was true, she supposed, but it did not help in the slightest when dealing with her all too human parents.

“I’m not afraid of her,” she said. “I just don’t have anything to tell her, so what’s the point of meeting her?”

Her fists were closed tight when she stood and walked back to her room. If she opened them, Spike might see her hands were shaking. The looks he gave her were too piercing already, and she didn’t want to give him more to notice and think about.

Walking into the bedroom, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it. The first thing she saw was the pile of books and notebooks on the dresser. It sent a pang of longing through her for that almost normal life she had pretended was hers, even for a few precious weeks. Anger rose in her at the injustice of it all. Buffy hadn’t asked for any of it, for her calling and the dreams and the strength and the sheer knowledge that she was responsible for fighting demons.

From the first day she had been chosen, she’d been punished. As hard as she’d tried to run from them, to escape, the punishments had kept coming. First the asylum, then her Watcher’s death, those dreary months spent in Cleveland, her stolen chance of normalcy in Sunnydale. Even her first relationship – if she could even call what she had with Spike a relationship – wouldn’t last. She knew it wouldn’t. It couldn’t, not when she still had marks on her throat from his fangs, a reminder of the almost successful attempt at taking her life. 

She banged her fists against the door on each side of her before stepping forward with a wordless cry. A swipe of her arm sent the books and notebooks to the floor. A few raging kicks scattered them throughout the room and sent loose sheets of paper flying around her. The click of the latch caught her attention and she turned to the door, furious to see Spike standing on the threshold. She glared at him and came close to baring her teeth. If he even said a word, it was his dust she would send flying through the room.

*

At the first banging noise, Spike leapt from the sofa and rushed to the Slayer’s room. He had thought she would hide until night fell, seeing how his attempt at prying into her mind had upset her so much. By the time he opened the door, the noise had ceased and she was standing amongst ruined notebooks and pieces of papers, looking at him as though daring him to step in.

“Maybe I should have said that sooner,” he commented with a raised eyebrow, “but me cleaning up your room? That’s not going to happen again. I’m not the bloody maid.”

She practically growled at him. “I didn’t ask you for anything, did I? And you might want to learn the meaning of a closed door. You said it’s my room, so a little privacy would be nice.”

The smile he gave her was his nastiest. “It’s still my place, and closed door or not, I’ll do what I damn well please. If you don’t want me barging in, don’t make enough noise to make me wonder if there’s a chaos demon in here. What the bloody hell got into you anyway? I’ve had my share of insanity with Dru, thanks ever so. I don’t need a repeat every time I mention your bloody mother.”

Spike didn’t know which upset her most of hearing him talk of Drusilla or of her mother. But she was upset, very obviously so as she rushed to him and unexpectedly pushed him out of the room. He grabbed her wrist as he stumbled backwards and she fell with him, landing on top of him. She jumped back up right away and stood poised on her toes as Spike stood more slowly.

“Slayer,” he tried to warn her, but it was useless. 

Her closed fist flew toward his face. He evaded by ducking low, and struck back with a swipe of his bare foot toward her leg. She moved back just in time to avoid it.

“Last time we played that game, you lost,” he reminded her. “You sure you want a repeat of that?”

Still silent, she spread her feet a little more, securing her footing. Both her hands were raised in front of her, ready to strike. Her eyes burned with a fire he hadn’t seen there since they had last fought in Cleveland – no, even before that. Spike grinned and rolled his shoulders, waiting for the next strike. He didn’t have to wait long.

It wasn’t really a fight, he realized as she sent a volley of punches and kicks in his direction, forcing him to retreat toward the kitchen. If it had been, she would have made contact a lot more, and it might actually have hurt. No, not a fight; a game, maybe, as he had said, or even sparring. Either was fine with him.

He stopped retreating in front of her without warning, and caught her arm as she swung at him. Pulling hard, he twisted her body so that her back was pressed to his front, and dove for her neck. Before he could touch his lips there, she bent forward, pressing her lovely ass up against his growing erection. Distracted, Spike suddenly found himself flying over her and crashing into the sofa’s side.

He threw her a glare and started standing with a growl.

“If you didn’t like the furniture—”

She was on him again before he could finish, hands fisting his shirt and hauling him up and over the sofa. He crashed down half on, half off it. His head banged hard against the leg of the cast iron coffee table and sent that tumbling backwards. When he picked himself up again, the scent of blood was in the air and he didn’t need to touch the back of his head to know he was bleeding.

“Is that the best you can do?” she said angrily, her first words since the scuffle had started. “Are you even trying?”

A flash of heat ran through him and he shifted to his game face without a second thought. She was taunting him, looking at what could be her death straight on and not giving a damn, but wasn’t giving off the same vibes as the night he had almost killed her. She was the one who hadn’t been trying all that hard then, and she was definitely trying now. The question was, what was she trying to do? If she thought Spike would let her trick him into hurting her, she had something else coming her way. If he did that now, she’d never let him hear the end of it. That didn’t mean he would continue playing the role of her punching bag

“Be careful what you ask for,” he said with a flash of fangs. “You just might get it.”

A feint to the right, a jump to the left over the sofa’s back and she was his. She was breathing hard as he held her down to the floor, her wrists pinned over her head and her body trapped beneath his. She struggled, and tried to push him away, but even so he still had the advantage.

Until she kissed him.

Except for the night he had taken her to his flat, he had always been the one to initiate the first contact, while she merely reacted to it, either by deepening it or pushing him off. Not only that, but he had never kissed her while in game face, certain as he was that she wouldn’t let him. The shock of her mouth caressing his threw him off enough that, with a push of her hip, she rolled him over so that their positions were reversed. Her face over his, she looked at him for a few long seconds, and Spike wondered what was going on through her mind. Cautiously, she let go of his left arm, and brought her hand to hover against his still demonic features. She wasn’t touching him but he could feel the heat of her skin, so close and still much too far. The ghostly caress was as sensual as any he had ever received. Spike remained completely still all the while, unwilling to put a premature end to whatever this was. After the pretend fight they had just had, it was, if nothing else, a surprise.

Her hand finally returned to his, and this time she clasped it, linking their fingers together rather than holding him down. When she leaned down to press her mouth to his again, he was ready and parted his lips to welcome her in. The touch of her tongue was hesitant against his own, even more so when she drifted to carefully explore his fangs. Spike let her do as she pleased, content, for once, to let her take the lead.

She pulled back after mere seconds, much too soon to Spike’s liking. Just as he was about to protest, she rested her cheek against his chest. The next second, dry sobs were shaking her body.

Taken aback, Spike didn’t know how to react and stayed immobile. When the bitter scent of tears permeated the air however, he had to do something. Freeing his arms as gently as he could, he closed them around her and sat up to lean against the back of the sofa. He kept her against him the entire time, shifting her body until she was sitting on his lap, her head tucked beneath his chin.

He didn’t say a word – he wouldn’t have known what to say – and simply held her tighter when she started to cry harder.


	21. In which Spike considers ravishing and murdering.

Spike’s forgotten cigarette was reduced to ashes between his fingers, and when he realized it, the small movement of his hand made it crumble onto the floor. He looked at the gray flecks absently as he pulled out his pack and Zippo and lit a new one. He didn’t care about a bit of dust, or ashes as they may be, but the Slayer might. Maybe he’d clean that rather than giving her the opportunity to complain about it.

Of course, at that moment, he would have welcomed snarking from her. He would have welcomed just about anything, really, as long as she stepped out of her room and talked to him. Even just walking out of her room would have been a nice improvement.

After her breakdown, when her tears had finally stopped, she had carefully extricated herself from Spike’s arms and offered him her hand to help him stand. She had avoided his eyes when announcing she would take a nap before it was time to go out and patrol. She had closed the door of her room behind her, quietly as though to apologize for leaving him out. 

It had only been two in the afternoon then, and now it was past five. For three hours, there had not been a single noise from the room. Not a step, not a whisper, not a sob. Spike was worried – worried that she was in pain and that she didn’t want his help, worried that every minute that passed in silence would make it harder for him to reach her again – but after the way she had reacted to his intrusion in her room earlier, he wasn’t sure how much worse it would get if he tried again. 

Beyond the worry, though, another nagging feeling was rising, relentlessly piercing through despite Spike’s attempts to quiet it down. He could have been in her bed, right now. If he had only pushed when she was too broken to give even a token resistance, when she had needed him enough to consent to just a little bit more, he could have taken what he had wanted for weeks, now. He could have had her. 

It was the second time he had let her get away rather than risk facing her regrets later on. He was beginning to hate what he had become since he had started wanting her. It should have been an easy story between them, insert tab A into slot B, whether it was stake and heart, fangs and neck, or cock and cunt. Instead, he found himself acting in strange ways, to accommodate her strange moods. The killing of demons and vampires, he didn’t mind much, nor was it too much of a chore to be careful about feeding without the Slayer knowing about it. But watching her, taking small steps when he could have simply taken _her_? That wasn’t him. That wasn’t Spike. He couldn’t even bear to think about who would have acted like this, in another life.

The ashes of another forgotten cigarette fell to the floor as Spike called himself names in his mind and imagined plunging into a body as welcoming as it was hot. The fantasy became so vivid that it was all he could do not to simply open her bedroom’s door and make it happen. 

The unexpected knock on the door was almost a relief, distracting him from himself as he wondered who it could possibly be. He had been thinking about ordering food for the Slayer, that would at least have given him an excuse to intrude on her solitude, but he hadn’t done it yet. 

He opened the door, ready to curse the intruder, whoever it was, back to where they had come from, and hesitated when he found on his doorstep a woman. Blonde, probably in her forties, she reeked of nervousness but blinked and frowned when she saw him. He knew who she was before she even opened her mouth.

“Hello. I would like to see Buffy.”

After witnessing how the Slayer had reacted earlier to questions about her mother, Spike glared at her without even realizing he was, and his hands clenched into tight fists; it wouldn’t have taken much for him to clench them around her neck.

“What did you do to her?” he asked, his voice coming close to a growl.

Her eyes widened in surprise for a brief moment before she frowned again. “What did I…” she started, sounding outraged. “What did _you_ do to her?” Her voice was becoming shriller with each word. “She’s a minor. I could have you arrested on kidnapping and statutory rape charges. And I will if you don’t let me see my daughter right now!”

When she slipped a hand in her purse, he thought she would retrieve a stake; instead, she pulled out a cell phone, and added in a warning tone that she was calling the police. Spike had to struggle not to vamp out and simply get rid of her. The only thing that stopped him was that he didn’t know whether the Slayer would have thanked him or staked him.

“Spike?”

The voice didn’t sound at all like the Slayer’s, and when Spike turned to her, he discovered that it was more than her voice that he didn’t recognize. The Slayer he knew, the Slayer he had fought more times than he cared to remember, the Slayer who could answer him blow for blow when others would have been on the ground and pleading for it to stop, this Slayer was gone. In her place stood…a scared little girl. She wore an oversized flannel shirt, looking very much like a child wearing her father’s clothes. Arms wrapped around herself, eyes big and shiny, she had never seemed as young as she did at that moment. Spike wanted nothing more than to close the door and hold her until she stopped shaking. Until she was the Slayer again.

*

Buffy had only intended to lie down for a moment and calm her mind and racing heart, but she fell asleep as soon as she rested her head on the pillow. Her fight with Spike hadn’t been that hard, but the breakdown that had followed had left her confused and exhausted. Her sleep was thankfully dreamless, and only ended with the muffled sound of a knock. 

At first, she thought it was Spike knocking on her door. She sat up and instinctively grabbed the shirt at the foot of the bed, pulling it on against the shiver of cold that was clinging to her – and trying not to think that Spike’s arms had felt more comforting that the familiar soft fabric. She couldn’t allow herself to go down that path; nothing good could possibly lie ahead. As soothing as his embrace had been, she had to tell him that it wouldn’t lead him anywhere.

The sound of a woman’s voice froze her just as she was standing, and the cold spread over her. It couldn’t be her mother, Buffy assured herself. But as she stepped to the door and opened it quietly, she already knew it was.

She didn’t want to see her. She truly didn’t. Still, she found herself compulsively walking toward the entrance, slow, reluctant steps that took her too close. All she could see was Spike’s back, and the fury barely contained in the rigid set of his body. Wrapping her arms around herself, she said his name softly and he turned to face her.

His eyes darkened, as he looked at her, and she shivered at what she could almost have seen in them. He was angry. She had caused his anger often enough to know as much. But this time, the anger wasn’t directed toward her. Rather, he was angry on her behalf. 

The wave of warmth that submerged her was almost enough to make her dizzy. It was also enough to strengthen her. She couldn’t hide anymore, not if her mother knew where she was, so she might as well face her. The simple fact that she wouldn’t be alone to do it was intensely comforting.

“Let her in, please.”

It took Spike so long to react that she thought he wouldn’t listen to her, but, at last, he stepped aside, one small step, and Buffy forced herself to look past the door and at the woman covering her mouth with her hand.

“Oh my God, Buffy!”

In three hurried steps, Joyce was in front of Buffy and hesitating only a second before hugging her. Buffy tried and managed not to push her away, but answering to the hug in kind was beyond her.

“You’re here! You’re really here. It’s all right, honey, it’s over. We’re going home. Everything—”

“No.”

Buffy’s body tensed and her mother pulled back.

“What—” she started, but Buffy didn’t let her finish.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Joy drained from her mother’s face, slowly replaced by anger.

“Oh, yes you are,” she snapped. “I’ve been scared out of my mind for months. Do you have any idea what it felt like not to know if you were all right or lying in a ditch? Do you have any idea how much it hurt every time the private investigator said he had no new lead?”

“I called,” Buffy tried to argue, and her mother snorted.

“You called, yes. Twice in two years.” Without warning, Joyce grabbed Buffy’s arms, the grip of her fingers almost painful, and it was all Buffy could do to stop herself from striking to get her away. “I’m not leaving you here to live with a punk. What were you thinking? You don’t know what you’re doing.” 

She started shaking Buffy, now, probably not even realizing what she was doing. Buffy did not – could not – react.

“You’re still my daughter. You’ll always be my daughter, whatever happened, and I—”

Whatever else she was going to say was drowned in Spike’s growl. He pulled Buffy’s mother away from her and stepped between the two of them. Looking at Buffy through the golden eyes of his demon face, he tilted his head to one side.

“You OK?” he asked, very quiet.

Buffy realized she was shaking and made an effort to control herself. She nodded, unable to say a word, and Spike briefly reached out to caress her face with the tip of his fingers. Only then did she realize her cheeks were wet. She hurriedly dried them with her shirt’s sleeve and nodded again, hoping that this time she’d be more convincing.

Spike turned away from her and toward her mother, who was standing only two feet back, her face very pale and her body frozen in shock.

“You will not put your hands on her again,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “That clear enough for you?”

Joyce blinked and shuddered. Looking away from him, she found Buffy’s eyes and gave her an imploring look.

“Buffy? What…what is going on?”

That simple question brought back the memory of telling her parents the truth about who she was and what she did; the memory of the incredulity in their eyes, slowly turning into something so very much like pity; the memory of days spent trying to repeat to them and to whoever would listen that she wasn’t lying, wasn’t crazy, and that she just wanted to go home.

All that was over, now, Buffy realized with a jolt. She had meant what she had said about not going home. She missed her mom, she always would, but the cut was too deep to heal, and she was finally ready to accept that. She felt strangely relieved by that realization.

“I told you before,” Buffy said calmly. “Vampires exist. And you’ve just pissed off one of them.”

The look on her face was not as comical as Buffy would have imagined it would be – and not nearly satisfying enough.


	22. In which understanding can make one hurt, heal or hope.

Initially, despite his misgivings, Spike thought the Slayer would be all right confronting her mother, regardless of what bad blood lay between them. She was holding her ground, and making herself heard. But then, in an instant, she seemed to freeze when the woman grabbed her arms, she went rigid as though she couldn’t free herself, as though she were the child she had so resembled a moment before. He waited for a handful of painful seconds for her to wake up, but he couldn’t bear to see her like this; he had to intervene.

He did so with a growl, shifting thoughtlessly into his demon guise to wrench the woman away. It was all he could do not to snap her neck in the process. Instead, he forced himself to turn toward the Slayer and wanted to growl again when he noticed the wet traces down her cheeks.

He tried to catch her gaze and kept his voice low. “You OK?”

She stopped shaking, barely, and gave a weak nod that Spike didn’t believe. He followed the trail of a tear on her face with a finger. She blinked at that then frowned, as though just realizing that she was crying, and hurriedly wiped her cheeks. Her second nod wasn’t any more convincing than the first, but it would have to do.

Turning to face the woman again, he felt a jolt of savage satisfaction at the mixed shock and fear he could read on her features.

“You will not put your hands on her again,” he warned her, his tone conveying that the penalty for her transgression would be death. “That clear enough for you?”

The trembling woman looked past him, to her daughter behind him. Spike scowled. Did she expect help from the Slayer, now?

“Buffy? What…what is going on?”

When she answered, the Slayer’s voice was cooler than Spike would have expected given her recent tears. She sounded almost appeased, although Spike couldn’t see what would have soothed her.

“I told you before,” she said. “Vampires exist. And you’ve just pissed off one of them.”

 _Master_ vampire, he itched to correct her, but kept quiet save for a snarl directed at the increasingly pale woman in front of him. He was about to show her back to the door – even though breaking her neck still seemed like an appealing option – when the Slayer’s hand resting on his arm stopped him. The touch was as delicate as a butterfly’s wing caressing him, the softest touch of her hand he had ever been granted, yet Spike felt as though he had been branded with a hot iron. He looked at her, an eyebrow raised, and was glad when she met his eyes without flinching.

“Put the fangs away?”

It was half a plea, half a demand, and Spike complied easily. Her next words were harder to accept.

“Would you make tea for my…for Joyce and me? Please?”

It was twice in only a few minutes that she had used that small word – _please_ – when asking something from him. Spike liked it on her lips, almost as much as he liked to see her defiant and stubborn. He had a feeling he would like it even more the day she uttered it while he was buried between her thighs. And because he liked it so much, he complied again, though only after throwing a warning glare and showing a flash of fangs at the woman whom, he had noticed, the Slayer didn’t even call her mother anymore.

He kept an ear out for them as he hurried to the kitchen and through the motions of putting a kettle full of water on the gas. Turning back to look at them, he saw the Slayer close the front door and suggest to the shaking woman that they sit down in the living room. Spike scowled a little at that, though he had known the Slayer intended for Joyce to stay a little longer at least if she wanted tea. He would much rather have been alone with her.

Joyce’s words were quiet and hesitant once she had sat down on the sofa next to her daughter, but they seemed to echo in the silence of the flat.

“I…I am sorry. So sorry. I should have believed you. I should have seen that you were telling the truth. And instead I had you locked up…” 

She seemed to choke on the words even as a wave of icy anger ran down Spike’s back. What did she mean, locked up? The Slayer did not reply in any way.

“But I know, now,” she continued after a few moments. “I know you’re not crazy, you were never crazy. Vam…vampires do exist.”

The enormity of what she was saying seemed to hit her, and she fell silent once more. Behind Spike, the kettle started whistling and he busied himself in the quasi-automatic steps of warming the teapot, throwing in the leaves and water before stirring. He pulled out mugs as he waited for the flavor to infuse, and added a healthy dose of honey to one. He had noticed the Slayer liked her tea almost sweet enough to be undrinkable by a civilized palate. 

By the time he poured the dark brew into the mugs, Joyce had started talking again, asking small questions that received diffident answers. Had she truly not known what her daughter was? But then, she hadn’t even believed vampires existed until a few minutes ago. The picture her words and questions formed in Spike mind cast some light onto the Slayer’s behavior in the past few days, and why she had been so upset by her mother’s presence in town. He would ask, once they were alone, but he was beginning to understand and his daydream of killing Joyce fast was turning into a need to see her in pain for a long time.

One mug in each hand, he finally walked out of the kitchen and almost missed a step at what he heard.

“Are you…are you a vampire too? It’s OK if you are, honey, I won’t—”

“I’m not,” the Slayer interrupted bluntly.

“But your neck…”

She made a gesture toward the scar on the Slayer neck that made Spike want to growl. He had warned her not to touch her daughter again. But the Slayer’s small fingers touching those marks, almost caressing them, gave him pause and he stopped a few steps behind them.

“Spike…” she started, and hesitated for a second before starting again. “We fought, and he bit me. He won. But I’m still me. Not a vampire.”

Something deep inside Spike stirred and he wondered what things would be like if he had turned her – or if he ever did. The temptation was obviously there, to have a companion again to cross decades and centuries with, but he wanted to know her heat before he truly considered it.

“He bit you,” Joyce repeated, sounding horrified. “He could have killed you, couldn’t he? It’s what they do, isn’t it? But you live here? Is he forcing you? Do you—”

“He doesn’t force me to do anything,” the Slayer interrupted.

Spike snorted to himself as he glanced at the two mugs in his hands. There was indeed little doubt as to which of them made the other dance to a merry tune. With a shake of his head, he started stepping toward them again, unnoticed by the two women.

“Then why?” Joyce insisted. “He could hurt you.”

“He won’t. I know he won’t. I feel safe here. With him.”

At those words, it took all of Spike’s self control not to drop the mugs, shove Joyce out of the door and take the Slayer to his bed to shag her senseless.

*

All Buffy needed was one look toward Spike as he approached the sofa to know he had heard her. Troubled, she looked away under the pretext of pulling upright the coffee table they had knocked sideways when fighting earlier in the afternoon. She had not wanted him to hear that she trusted him, even if it was true. That would give him ideas – another quick glance confirmed as much – and she would have even more trouble convincing him that whatever he wanted to happen between them was a bad idea and needed to be stopped.

She already had trouble convincing herself.

With a quiet word of thanks, she accepted the mug from him, and watched her mother’s eyes widen as she hesitantly did the same. Joyce was clearly scared of Spike.

“Could you leave us?” Buffy asked in the same gentle tone she had used when asking for tea.

His refusal was a flat and unequivocal “no,” uttered as he flung himself in the armchair behind Joyce. She turned to look at him, uncomfortable even though she said nothing. He looked at her with a frown before his gaze slid over to Buffy. Her mouth was open and she was ready to argue with him, once again, about privacy, but the small, soft smile barely tugging at his lips stopped her. He wasn’t trying to annoy her, she realized, nor did he want to eavesdrop on what would be said; he could have done as much from the other room. He wanted to stay for the same reason he had stepped between her and her mother, earlier. To protect her. 

The irritation she had felt vanished, replaced by sweetness due only in part to the warm honeyed tea sliding down her throat.

“I’m not going back with you,” she said, calm but firm, bringing her mother’s attention back to her. “Los Angeles is not my home anymore.”

Without even taking a sip from it, Joyce put her mug down on the coffee table, spilling a little tea as her hands shook.

“Why not?” she pleaded. She started reaching out toward Buffy, but the light growl coming from behind her stopped her. “I understand, now. I know you were telling the truth. Things are different now.”

Buffy washed away the bitter taste of betrayal with another sip of tea. Her mother had apologized, but she couldn’t help but feeling that those few words were far from sufficient to erase months of nightmares.

“Your father and I separated,” Joyce continued when Buffy didn’t answer. “We’re getting—”

“I don’t want to know.” In a way, she already did. Hank would have been there too, if they had still been together. “It doesn’t concern me anymore. There are things I have to do. Important things, and I need to be in Sunnydale to do them.”

She paused, just long enough to glance at Spike and understand that he would only keep quiet until they were alone, then focused on her mother again. Her next words weren’t as hard to pronounce as she had thought they would be, but they soothed something deep inside her, a cut that had been bleeding for two years now.

“I can’t go back with you, mom. Not ever. Not after what you did to me.”

More apologies flowed, along with regret and some tears, but Buffy refused to let any of it touch her. Her eyes drifted back to Spike, who returned her gaze pensively. 

“You should go home,” she said after a while, when Joyce started repeating herself. “I’m not going to change my mind, and there’s nothing you can do to force me to come with you. If you send the police to get me, I’ll run away again, and this time you can be sure I won’t call you and give you a way to track me.”

Joyce nodded, although reluctantly. “Can I come back and see you?” she asked.

Buffy wished she could have accepted, but she didn’t have it in her. “I don’t know.”

Leaving her empty mug on the table, she stood, and Joyce did as well after a second. Although clearly shaken, she started once again to reach out toward Buffy, maybe for a hug, but a noise behind her startled her and she stopped to look back at Spike. He returned her look blankly, and whatever she read in his eyes seemed to dissuade her from hugging Buffy.

They walked to the door in silence and exchanged quiet goodbyes. When Buffy closed and locked it behind her mother, she wasn’t surprised to find Spike behind her. She could see the questions in his eyes, and she knew he would press until he had answers she wasn’t ready to give. Not yet, when her mind was still reeling from a confrontation she had imagined many times, although in her dreams it had never gone as smoothly; in those scenarios she had always ended up running, or locked up again.

With a slight shake of her head, she placed a finger across his lips and gave him an apologetic smile before gently pressing her mouth to his in a chaste kiss. He tried to deepen it, but she stepped aside, and offered him another smile.

“Thank you,” she murmured, meaning the words more than she had ever meant anything, and stepped back to her room to get ready for patrol.

*

Of course, Spike followed the Slayer when she went out. She didn’t talk to him, or welcome him in any way, but neither did she flat out refuse his presence. He asked a few questions about what had transpired with her mother, but she declined to answer, leaving him frustrated enough that he let her continue without her.

No more than half an hour had passed that he was back by her side. He’d get his answers, eventually. He’d get everything he wanted, in the end, he was sure of it. Every day that passed with her remaining in his flat, every look they shared, every touch or kiss, as small as it may be, bound them together. It wouldn’t be long now before he could make her his.


	23. In which poetry makes an appearance.

For the first time since she had been living with Spike, Buffy woke before him and tiptoed around the silent apartment to prepare her breakfast. With everything that had happened the previous day, from her breaking down in front of Spike to her mother’s visit, she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and she was now ravenous.

She yawned widely as she waited for the eggs to cook. She and Spike hadn’t returned from patrol until almost morning, and she had barely had three hours of sleep. It would have to be enough to get her through the day, though.

“That’s an ungodly hour to be up and around.”

Startled, Buffy practically jumped. She hadn’t heard Spike approach, nor had that prickling down her spine intensified as he had come closer. She wasn’t sure she liked how complacent she had become where he was concerned.

She turned to look at him. He had stopped to lean his shoulder against the wall and looked…the only word that came to her mind was scrumptious, and she faced the stove again rather than continue on that line of thought. It didn’t work, though. His image continued to dance in front of her, jeans too tight for words, long shirt unbuttoned so it revealed an expanse of smooth skin and defined abs, sleepy eyes that had never seemed so blue, bed hair that begged to have fingers rake through it, pouting lips so soft against her own…

Shaking her head, she poked at the eggs and tried to clear her mind.

“So?” he insisted, and now he sounded a little grumpy. “Why so early?”

She dared a quick glance back at him. It didn’t help, far from it.

“I just figured I had missed enough school already. If I’m staying in Sunnydale, I might as well go back.”

She didn’t need to look back to know he was walking closer, his bare feet making soft noise on the tiles. She tensed, expecting his hands to settle on her, a bit disappointed when they didn’t, a bit shocked at her own reaction.

“Tea?” he asked with a yawn.

“I can make it,” she said quickly, moving over so he wouldn’t brush against her when he opened the cupboard. “You can go back to bed. You haven’t been getting much sleep since I’ve been here.”

She had meant her words to be a little contrite, but they ended up teasing. Spike snorted and threw her a sideways look.

“I haven’t been getting much sleep in a long while,” he retorted. “And if you feel like helping, seeing how it’s your fault, I’m sure we can figure out something…”

The innuendo in his words made Buffy’s cheeks feel like fire and she turned away, carrying the eggs over to the table where she had already placed a plate. She didn’t reply – there was nothing she could have said without making things worse. She could feel his eyes on her as she sat down with her back to him and ate, and she couldn’t help remaining tense.

“If I didn’t know any better, I could almost believe I forced myself on you. Didn’t you say you trusted me?”

The hint of bitterness she thought she heard in his voice was nowhere to be seen when she turned back in her seat to look at him. Instead, he looked determined. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he was determined to do.

“I just…” she started, but didn’t know how to continue. 

His raised eyebrow seemed to expect more however so she struggled to find the words. It would have been easy to blame her jumpiness on the fact that he was a vampire and she was the Slayer. But he had heard her admit that she trusted him, and she doubted he would let her get back on that statement now. Also, being honest might help her sort through what was going on in her head too.

“I know what you wanted when you brought me here that first night,” she said slowly, her attention focused on how he would react. He remained poker-faced, leaving nothing of what he thought to the surface. “I figure by now I must have worn out whatever supply of patience you had.”

If she went for total honesty, at least to herself, she could admit that she had used up her own patience as well with everything they had shared in the past days. Every time she touched him now, it became more difficult to pull back before anything more than a kiss could happen.

“And if that’s the case,” he asked coolly, “what’s next?”

If he had advanced toward her or made a verbal overture, Buffy would have known how to answer – or at least, she thought she would have. But his stillness and the dispassionate way in which he answered left her at a loss as to what he expected from her, or how she could answer him. She knew what she would have liked to do if they had not been who they were, but as things stood, her conscience would not accept anything more. Her eyes locked to his, she tried to figure out what to say or do, and stayed silent until the kettle began whistling softly behind him. The sudden noise spurred her into action.

“I need to go,” she said, breaking eye contact and standing hurriedly. “I’m going to be late.”

She left the apartment before he could call her on her lie and point out that she had more than enough time to get to school. If she had stayed any longer, she might have told him she needed to leave – period – and she wasn’t ready yet for that. It was the best thing to do, or so she told herself on her way to Sunnydale High. Spike wouldn’t like it, but she had to be firm. She couldn’t live with a vampire, couldn’t trust a vampire, couldn’t have a relationship with a vampire, not even if she was attracted to him. She would tell him when she returned there that afternoon. Or at least, she would try to.

She hadn’t planned to go see Giles right away, but with half an hour to spare, she went to the library and took a seat to wait for him. When he finally arrived, the look on his face expressed such relief that for a moment Buffy was speechless.

“Buffy!” 

Beaming, he approached her. For a second, she thought he would hug her, but he stopped three steps in front of her and controlled his smile and emotions to something more reasonable for an Englishman.

“I am glad to see you. Can I ask what brought you back?”

“I saw my mother,” Buffy replied with a slight grimace. “She…understood that I’m not going back with her.”

She wondered how much Joyce had really understood, and how much had been brought on by her fear at discovering vampires were real.

“I see,” Giles said quietly. He took his glasses off and started rubbing at them absently with a handkerchief, his eyes never leaving Buffy and making her a little uncomfortable. “I wish I could have helped more with her, but she threatened to have me arrested and I doubt I would have been of much use to you from behind bars. At least, I persuaded the Council to let you remain in Sunnydale. I trust Spike told you as much?”

There was the hint of something dark when he said Spike’s name, but Buffy was suddenly completely sure that he wouldn’t ask anything about the vampire, and why she had been around him, unless she talked about it first.

She definitely didn’t plan to.

“He mentioned it,” she answered. “What did you say to convince them?”

“Mostly that it was your Slayer dreams that had led you here, and that the same kind of dreams would call you back to Cleveland if you were needed there.” His lips stretched into a feral smile that she would have expected from Spike, but not from him. “I assured the Council that in such a case, I would accompany you to Cleveland without delay. Let’s just say that your former Watcher was not impressed.”

It only took a word – former – and a weight that Buffy had been carrying over her shoulders instantly vanished. She had never thought of Spencer as her Watcher, but it was a relief to know she wouldn’t have to deal with him anymore. Her relief though paled in comparison to her surprise at realizing she might learn to think of Giles as such, if she hadn’t started on that path already.

“Thank you,” she said, very quiet, and Giles nodded.

“I should have taken care of that matter as soon as you decided to remain in Sunnydale. Then there would have been no reason for you to feel you had to move out.”

Shoving his glasses back on his nose, he slid a hand in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. He opened the ring to separate one of them from the rest then handed it out to Buffy; she recognized it immediately as being his townhouse’s key.

Before either of them could add anything, the first bell of the day chimed through the library, announcing that the first class was only minutes away.

“Off to class, then,” Giles said. “If you will come by after school, we will get back to your training schedule.”

With a roll of her eyes, Buffy dashed off to her first period class. She noticed the stares when she stepped inside the classroom and took her seat at the back of the class, but thought nothing much of them. As the morning advanced however, the whispers exchanged by her peers and the reprobating frowns from the teachers started grating on her nerves, and she was almost thankful, when entering her English class, to see Cordelia’s eyes widen in pleasure.

“You’re back!” Cordelia exclaimed, taking advantage of the couple of minutes before the class actually started. “You know, it’s kinda annoying that I wished for a world in which you wouldn’t have shown up in Sunnydale, and now I’m worrying if you skip school for a few days.”

Buffy snorted. “Maybe you should have asked for a world in which we’re best friends.”

“As if,” Cordelia said, tossing her hair to the side. “I’m not that desperate.”

Buffy’s cutting remark remained unvoiced as the teacher demanded silence and proceeded to pass out test packets. Stifling a groan, Buffy looked at the first question. She barely remembered the poem it related to, something about love and hate that she hadn’t understood at all.

She raised her hand and, when the teacher nodded to her from her desk, she went to her with the meekest expression she could manage.

“I didn’t have time to study for this test—” she started, but the teacher stopped her with a shake of her head.

“You’ve known it was coming for three weeks, Buffy,” she said sternly. “And since your absence was unauthorized, and frankly disappointing, you’ll have to take the test today with the rest of the class.”

Blinking at the icy tone that had seeped through the woman’s voice, Buffy returned to her seat. Surely, missing a few days of school didn’t warrant the treatment she had been receiving so far, especially in a school where students who didn’t show up for school were presumed dead.

She tried to take the test, but even if she had remembered any more about the readings, she would have been too puzzled to write anything decent. When she turned in her work, the disapproval of the teacher was clear, and it only annoyed Buffy even more.

“OK, what is going on?” she asked Cordelia as they started toward their lockers. Around her, the sideways looks and whispered conversations were redoubling. “Why was that teacher so nasty? And why is everyone looking at me like I have fangs?”

Cordelia shrugged. “Remember when that guy was spreading the rumor you’re Giles’ girlfriend rather than his niece? Well, when your mother went to the principal, that started right up again. Pretty much everyone thinks you were out of school because your mother found out about you two and took you home. There are bets going on about whether Giles will be arrested on campus or at his place. Now they’ll be wondering if you’re back with your mother’s approval or if you ran away.”

Astounded, Buffy stopped walking in the middle of the hall, and watched the students going past her with smirks or disgusted looks. She had liked it much better when they had looked at her with wondering awe and thought she was responsible for the decline of unexplained deaths in town.

Now, she had to decide which would be worse – giving credit to the rumors that claimed she had a relationship with Giles by moving in with him again, or remaining the guest of a vampire who had almost killed her once, and was now trying to get her into his bed.

She doubted anyone who wasn’t a Slayer ever had to make this kind of decision.

*

The Slayer hadn’t left for half an hour that Spike was already bored out of his mind. While she had been there, even when she had been sleeping or watching telly in silence, her presence had been tangible in the apartment, her scent and heartbeat permeating the entire space. Now, he was only aware of the utter silence.

“Pathetic,” he said aloud, filling in the void she had left. “Worse than a love struck puppy. You’re a vampire, you idiot. You’re going to fuck her, not make googly eyes and recite poetry to her.”

The quiet that answered almost seemed to be mocking him.

He kicked at the sofa as he passed by it, then strode into her room. He inhaled deeply as he walked in and let himself fall on the unmade bed. In his mind, he could see her eyes flashing with anger as she demanded privacy. She was pretty when she was angry, even prettier when she fought, but he had a feeling she would be simply gorgeous when he finally got her in his bed. He had seen her half naked already, and he couldn’t wait to see all of her, to touch and kiss and bite and finally, finally slip between her thighs. He knew already that she would be hot, and oh so tight.

With a mind of their own, his fingers had slid to his crotch as he thought of her, and started rubbing his hardening cock through the material of his jeans. It soon wasn’t enough, and a flick of his wrist tearing at the buttons freed him from the confines of the pants. Eyes closed and breathing through his nose to take in her scent, he recalled to his mind the times they had fought and those they had kissed, letting his hand follow an increasingly faster pace as he lost himself in the memories and giving them a new ending, where she did not pull away but instead welcomed him inside her. The fantasy did not last long. Spike came, hips arching off the bed, teeth biting down on his lower lip. Sleep draped over him before he knew it, and he rolled over, hugging her pillow to his face.

He woke up a few hours later, disorientated at first, then a little amused as he imagined the Slayer’s reaction if she had come home to find him half naked in her bed. Sitting up, he fixed his pants then blinked as he noticed something on the floor. He reached over and picked up the book; it had to be one of her school textbooks, left to lie on the floor after her outburst of anger the previous day. He flicked through the pages, stopping here and there to see what nonsense was being shoved into students’ heads in this day and age, until a page caught his attention. 

The poem wasn’t very long, not even fifteen lines, but Spike found himself reading it over and again. In a previous life, he would have damned his too pure soul to write something like this. Today, he could only curse whatever ghost lingered of this same soul for the emotion that was taking him at reading these simple verses. He was being ridiculous. This word, repeated so often over the lines, didn’t apply to him – could _not_ apply to him. He wanted to fuck the Slayer, nothing else, nothing more. 

And still, when she came back to find him sitting in front of the telly, when she stood there, looking shifty, and told him her Watcher wanted her to go back to living with him, it wasn’t words of anger that ran through Spike’s mind. Rather, they were Neruda’s words, memorized without Spike realizing what he was doing, and it was all he could do not to speak them aloud to the Slayer – to Buffy.

_I do not love you except because I love you…  
_


	24. in which Spike proves he’s not a tamed demon.

The shadow in front of Buffy was growing long as she made her way back to Spike’s apartment. Giles had been adamant that she train longer than she usually did, to make up for the past few days, and he had offered to take her to have dinner after that, giving her the perfect opening.

*

_“It might not be such a good idea.”_

_Giles looked at Buffy with puzzled eyes, taking his glasses off his nose._

_“Not a good idea?” he repeated. “I’ve seen what the cafeteria was serving for lunch, and you’ve been training for almost three hours. You must be starving.”_

_In truth, Buffy was, but she shook her head._

_“It’s not that. I’m just thinking, it might not be such a good idea to feed the rumors.”_

_A blink was Buffy’s first clue that Giles didn’t know what she was talking about; his frown, the second._

_“The rumors?”_

_In as few words as possible, she told him what Cordelia had revealed, adding in her own observations of the students’ and staff’s reactions to her. Giles seemed to grow paler by the second._

_“They couldn’t possibly think…” He trailed off as though just realizing something. He wasn’t so pale anymore, his cheeks darkening with something that could have been anger or shame. “So that’s why they’ve been—”_

_He stopped again, this time giving Buffy a look that was definitely embarrassed. She wondered if he found it more embarrassing that the whole campus thought he had an affair with a student or that he hadn’t even realized they did._

_“And that’s why I can’t go back to living with you,” Buffy said, trying to sound completely calm and matter of fact about it. “That’d just fuel the rumors even more.”_

_Giles agreed that it made sense before frowning once more._

_“Where will you live, then?”_

*

Giles hadn’t liked her answer at all, and Buffy had felt vaguely guilty about that. He meant well, even if he was a bit naïve when confronted with non-demonic but still quite serious situations. She wasn’t sure her explanation that Spike had started giving her a hand on patrols and that he was a surprisingly decent host had convinced him. In the end, she hadn’t given him much of a choice. The decision was hers, and it had been easy to make, maybe even too easy.

Now, she just needed to see what Spike thought about it – about her living with him on a more permanent basis, and about the changes she was ready to make to their situation. 

Her palms were sweaty when she reached the apartment, and she wiped them off on her jeans before walking in. She had never been scared when he had been trying to kill her but now she couldn’t get her heart to calm down.

She left her school stuff and jacket by the door before walking in, following the sound of the television to the living room. Spike was sprawled on the sofa, still barefoot, but he had buttoned up his shirt and slicked back his hair. He looked just as good as he had that morning, and that gave Buffy pause. Was she being hasty? Was she making a reasoned decision, or one based on her attraction to him?

She pushed the idea away. She had thought about it all, she knew what to say and what to request. There was nothing hasty about it.

“Giles wants me to go back to living at his place.”

She said that first part quickly, eager to get it over with, and was struck by the flash of emotion that ran over Spike’s features. Her carefully prepared words disappeared when she realized what it was; the shock of betrayal. His eyes never leaving her, he sat up then stood, and she noticed his lips were moving, although without making a sound. He frowned suddenly and shook his head, just once, as though shaking off a thought. His gaze suddenly became fiery.

“Done with playing, then?” he sneered. “Had your fun leading me on and now—”

She interrupted him before he could say any more and make things more difficult, more awkward than they would need to be.

“I told him I’m staying here.”

She could feel heat rushing to her cheeks as she said it, and she hated that it did. She used to be a no-nonsense girl, focused on slaying and with little worries other than how to clean out vampire nests. In just a few weeks, Spike had brought her back to the blushing teenager that had done little more than smile at a couple of cute guys at school. And at the same time, he had made her feel like she was so much older. Old enough to stand up to her mother. Old enough to live with a man, with whatever that might entail. Old enough to take a risk with her heart if Spike laughed at her, or with her life if he decided he was done being nice.

Now, though, Spike wasn’t doing anything more than staring at her. The sudden thought that he might not want her to live here any longer started her babbling.

“I mean, if that’s ok with you. If you want me to go, that’s not a problem. I’ll pack up and leave you alone. I’ll do that right away. I was just tired of moving around, so I thought—” 

“Liar.”

The barest hint of a smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth when he took a step toward her. It wasn’t a nice smile at all.

“I’m not lying,” she defended herself, and tried very hard not to move back when he kept advancing on her.

“You’re not staying here because you’re tired of moving.” 

His voice almost cracked with laughter at that, and Buffy bit the inside of her cheek. She hadn’t believed he would make fun of her, but she had imagined the possibility. She wouldn’t let him upset her.

“And why would I be, then?” she asked, rolling her eyes and trying to sound cool about the whole thing.

He was grinning widely, now. “You’re the only one who knows, but I have a small idea. I’d bet it has something to do with this.”

And then his mouth was upon hers, and there really wasn’t much for Buffy to do except to give back as much as she got.

*

For a minute that lasted forever, Spike thought the Slayer would leave before giving him the chance he needed to show her, to tell her in actions if not in words what he had just realized he felt for her. He started lashing out, but she stopped him with a few quiet, almost shy words. He hadn’t lost the Slayer, he realized; instead, he just might have won Buffy. Whatever excuses she wanted to give, he knew why she was staying, and he refused to let her fool herself as she was trying to fool him.

He descended on her lips without warning and kissed her hard, enough so that she gasped and gave him access to her mouth. Of their own accord, his arms locked around her, pulling her tight against him. He put into the kiss all his want, all his need, all the frustration and lust he had felt in the past weeks, and even a tiny bit of the lighter emotion that had surfaced earlier that day. Buffy responded with the same intensity, and he would have crowed his satisfaction if he had been able to let go of her lips for even a second.

Trapped against his chest, her hands fisted the fabric of his shirt as though holding on for dear life, and when she finally broke the kiss, it wasn’t to run away as she had always done so far, but rather to catch her breath and look at him with wide eyes.

“We’ve got to talk,” she said, her voice shaky.

“Talk?” Spike repeated as he maneuvered her back to the couch and lay down with her. “I can do that.” On his side, with a leg wedged between hers, he bent to nuzzle her neck even as he slipped his hand beneath her t-shirt. “Can tell you all the lovely things I’ll do to you.” She shuddered when he flicked his tongue at the marks on her throat, then again when he cradled her left breast in his palm. “Worship you like a goddess and make you beg like my pet.” Kisses up her neck and over her jaw made her sigh, almost so quietly he didn’t hear it. “Explore your body until I can make you come as fast or as slowly as I want to. Until you’re mine. My Slayer. My—”

One second, Spike was half lying over her, touching her with hand and lips and the length of his body. The next, he was blinking and trying to understand how she had reversed their positions so that she was now straddling him, her hands pinning his wrists on each side of him. He broke into a lascivious smirk.

“Didn’t think you’d take the lead so fast, luv.”

She shook her head; her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing heavily. “We need to talk,” she said again. “There’s got to be rules if…if we’re going to…if I’m going to stay here.”

Spike bucked his hips, not very high, just to make her realize what rested against the heat of her cunt, with only a couple of fabric layers between them. Her eyes widened just a little more and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

“I don’t need a safe word,” he grinned. “And I have the feeling that you don’t either.”

“That’s not…” She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again her voice was just a little steadier, and much more determined. “You can’t hunt humans anymore.”

It took two seconds to Spike to realize she wasn’t joking, and for his grin to fade away. “You can’t be serious,” he said with a puzzled blink.

“I am very serious. That’s my condition to being with you.”

He observed her for a few more seconds. The determination was there, and a hint of certitude, too. She was sure he would agree. That, almost more than her demand, angered him.

“Ever since you’ve been here, you haven’t asked me once how I’ve been feeding. And now you make demands like you’re the one in charge?”

She let go of his wrists at last, recoiling a little as though his cold words had been a slap. She wasn’t so sure of herself anymore, he could see it in her eyes and hear it in her words.

“If you want me, that’s the price.”

“I’m not paying a price for what you want to give me for free.” He bucked once more beneath her, just to make his point. She slid off him and stood a little shakily. “If you’ve got a problem with what I am, you can go back to your Watcher.”

He kept his eyes on her while she moved back, retreating until the back of her knees touched the edge of the armchair and sitting down almost as though her legs had given up beneath her. For long minutes, silence stretched between them, thick with what could have happened and the resentment that it hadn’t. Spike sat up and retrieved the pack of cigarettes crammed between the cushions of the sofa and lit one, taking a deep drag before he snapped at her.

“What did you think would happen? That I’d bend to your will and agree to anything you’d say just to get to fuck you?” She flinched at that; the words tasted bitter to Spike. “I’m not a tamed animal. Just because I didn’t kill you doesn’t mean I lost my fangs.”

A lock of her hair, escaped from her braid, came to frame her face when she shook her head just the tiniest bit. She looked lovely, however hard Spike tried not to see it.

“I just thought…” She pinched her lips tight, making the scar that crossed them all but disappear. “I thought you…cared enough about me to stop killing if I asked.”

It wasn’t ‘cared’ that Spike heard, but another word, one he would have laughed at if she had uttered it just a day earlier, one he couldn’t have denied if she had used it now. He didn’t reply to what had been, just barely, a question; if he had, he might have agreed that he did care that much, and she would have kept pushing until he handed her his fangs, his balls and all he was on a silver platter. He couldn’t accept her demands, not if it meant that he’d end up resenting her, maybe even hating her for it.

“So, what do we do, now?” he asked in an exhalation of smoke.

The Slayer didn’t seem to know any more than he did.


	25. In which they end it with a fight.

All of Buffy’s frustration, all of her anger and confusion were channeled into a single blow, as accurate as it was fatal. Ashes spread out around her and she absently brushed them off her clothes. She gazed down and saw the specks settle on her boots, gray appearing white on the black leather. She wished her life could still be as easy; black and white had an elegant simplicity to them. She had once known what to do, when confronted with Spike, when only chance had kept her from killing him – or him from killing her.

Now, she didn’t know anymore what to think, feel, or do, and when she looked up to find the glowing tip of his cigarette only a few yards away by the side of a crypt, where his body was no more than a silhouette, she had half a mind to turn her back to him and walk away again. When he had refused to yield to her – she had been so sure he would consent, so sure he would have done just about anything to have her – she had left the apartment, telling him she had to patrol. In truth, it had been no more than a pretext to put some distance between them. She had wanted time to think about what would come next. She still was no closer to an answer than she had been earlier. Maybe it was time to stop running and end it now.

The shift in her body was minute, the barest roll of her shoulders to loosen the knot of tension there, a slide of her left foot to widen her stance, the play of her fingers on the stake in her hand. She knew Spike understood, however, when the red pinpoint flared brightly before drawing an arc in the darkness, the cigarette discarded when he stepped forward. The sight of his long strides, of his coat flaring behind him, of the intensity of his eyes brought Buffy back to their first fights, back to Cleveland. Without realizing what she was doing, she raised her left hand to her mouth and ran the tip of a finger against the scar that marred her lips. The memories of the pain as the tip of the blade had met her flesh, of the blood filling her mouth resurfaced in an instant, and white-hot anger coursed through her.

Spike was close enough that she could see the slow smile pulling at his features, the same smile she had received a few times in the past, usually before he made some kind of boasting comment as to how easily he would kill her. This time again, he didn’t disappoint.

“You sure you want to play this game again, Slayer?” He stopped barely two yards in front of her, his posture blatantly casual. She knew he was poised, as ready for this as she was. “I don’t have to remind you how it ended the last times we had a go, do I?”

She shook her head slowly, both as an answer to his question and to push away the memories. Their last fight had ended with her breaking down in tears. The one before that, with his fangs in her neck. This time would be different. This time, she intended to win.

She launched her first attack without further warning.

*

In the stillness of the night, beneath the cold half-lidded stare of the moon, they were the only creatures still moving. Back and forth amongst the graves, their footing remained steady despite the pearls of dew blossoming beneath their feet. They had done this before, of course, and the steps of this dance were familiar to both of them. 

The Slayer’s heartbeat pulsed like a beacon, thrumming through Spike’s body and drawing him closer again and again. Her breathing was becoming slightly jagged; they had been playing for a little while already. Still, her attacks continued to come, unrelenting, and as deadly as ever, should Spike slip up. His own blows, in return, were just as unforgiving. A trickle of blood was sliding from a scrape on her cheek, and only by being at the best of her game had she avoided being more marked so far. Spike knew he would sport a few colorful bruises before the night was over. 

They had been silent until now, except for a couple of pointed jabs on each side, but as the Slayer took a few steps back to catch her breath, Spike couldn’t help himself.

“So, this is it, then? We end it with a fight?”

“Why not? It’s how it all started.”

He could hear the edge of determination in her words, but he had learned to read her well enough to realize she was forcing herself to project this determination, and it wasn’t an easy façade to keep up.

“I’m the Slayer,” she continued, falling back on an often-walked path but sounding like she was trying to convince herself rather than Spike. “I kill vampires, I don’t get close to them. Especially not if it’s one who killed Slayers before, and who said he’d kill me.”

She seemed to have rested enough, and she settled into a defensive position once more, waiting for Spike to attack first. Instead of lunging at her, he sat on the cold marble of a headstone. It took him a few seconds to quiet down the flare of guilt her words had brought forth. He had always prided himself on following through with his promises. One day, when he joined his princess in hell, he would pay a hefty price for breaking this one, he was sure of it.

“What about getting close to a vamp who helps you do your job?” He snorted at her blank look. “I haven’t kept a tally of how many demons I killed for you in the past few weeks. Maybe I should have.”

The flimsiest smile ghosted over her lips. “Maybe.”

It wasn’t much. Just a word, not even a full smile. But it gave back to Spike the bit of hope he needed to keep pushing.

*

Buffy wasn’t fooling herself. It was a step in the right direction that Spike had been helping her with her Slayer duties, but it wasn’t enough. In the grand scheme of things, she knew that whether he killed fifteen demons or fifty or even ten times that to please her, it was nowhere near the number of humans he had killed, not in the last year let alone during his entire life as a vampire. 

Still, if he was willing to kill his own kind for her, it gave her hope that he might be willing to do even more. He didn’t give her time to ask again, however.

“We had a fine arrangement until now, I thought. What you didn’t see didn’t hurt me. Why does it have to be different?”

A pang of guilt chimed through Buffy, and she couldn’t help wondering how much she hadn’t seen – and whether she had turned a blind eye on it all, or whether Spike had been discreet while feeding. In the end, the result was the same. She may not have witnessed him killing humans, but she knew, with the same certainty that she knew a stake through his heart would kill him, that he had killed while she had been living with him. She had managed not to think about it until this day, but she couldn’t continue like this. She couldn’t allow herself to be in love with a killer.

It was the first time she had consciously associated the feeling to Spike, and suddenly her legs were threatening to give in beneath her. A little wobbly, she stepped to the nearest tombstone and sat on the edge of it after sparing an apologetic thought for the owner of the tomb. Just three feet away from her, Spike was mirroring her position; she looked at him through brand new eyes. She had come back to his apartment earlier thinking that she wanted him as her lover. Only now was it dawning on her that she wanted more than that – more that she could admit to him.

“It has to be different,” she finally answered his question, “because I want…no, I _need_ to be able to look at myself in a mirror.”

Spike leaned forward, his forearms resting on his knees.

“How did you do it until now? It doesn’t have to change.”

“But it already _has_ changed. Until today I lived with you because I didn’t have any other option. I can’t use that as an excuse anymore. I could live elsewhere. I just…I just don’t want to.”

She finished on a whisper, but she had no doubt that Spike had heard all of it. She struggled not to drop her eyes, keeping them instead locked to Spike’s. She could have sworn that, for just a second as he stood, they burned the bright color of amber.

*

Until this moment, Spike had been sure that the Slayer was trying to play hard to get for the sheer enjoyment of it. But the quiet admission she offered him changed that. Buffy hadn’t professed feelings that Spike himself wasn’t ready to admit to, but she had done even more. With those few words, she had told him that she was thinking at what would happen beyond the fuck they both craved. A Slayer’s life left little place for long-term plans, and yet that was what Buffy was struggling with here.

Standing, he took small steps toward her, tilting his head sideways to look at her. Pretty, pretty Slayer, so fair and small and deadly.

“Do you think it’s easy for me?” he blurted out, biting back the urge to make promises he would regret all too soon.

By the small shake of head and frown she gave him, he could tell that she didn’t understand.

“You said it yourself, I swore to kill you. And instead, I’ve been taking care of you. Wanting you.” He snorted. “Dru might be dead, but she’s not forgiving me for that broken promise, and she’ll never let me forget it.”

Comprehension gleamed in her eyes, as well, maybe, as a glint of pity Spike chose to ignore.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her tone so brightly honest that Spike could almost believe her. “Not for killing Drusilla, because it was her or me, but I’m sorry I didn’t even imagine you’d still hurt because of it. I guess…I guess I should move out.”

She stood, finally breaking eye contact to slide her stake through a loop of leather at her belt. This was the breaking point, Spike realized. They had fought, they had talked, and he would either make a small gesture toward her now, or lose her.

“I can’t stop hunting,” he said more harshly than he meant to. “I need it, the blood and the hunt. That’s who I am.”

Looking back at him, she gave a small nod of acceptance that urged him forward, however hard the concession was to make.

“But I can refrain from killing.”

She blinked, then frowned. “Is there a difference?”

With a movement slow enough that she wouldn’t think he was threatening her, he reached toward her, pulling at her collar until he could brush a finger to the marks on her neck.

“I drank from you, but I didn’t kill you. Would you believe me if I said I can do that again? If I said I’m ready to hunt humans without killing them?”

“What happened to not paying a price?”

He dropped his hand and smiled grimly. “It’s not what you asked from me, so it’s not a price. More like an offering, on my terms. And it comes with no guarantees. I might slip, sometimes, and stop too late. It’s hard to judge how much it will take to kill someone, it varies with every person, with how strong they are and how much they want to live. I might kill without wanting too, and that shouldn’t be a deal-breaker.”

She gave a half chuckle. “I think you’re trying to give me an excuse to say no.”

“No, I’m trying to get rid of the excuses before you ever need to use them.”

This time, her laugh was more pronounced. Then she stopped abruptly and simply said, “OK.”

Taken aback, Spike couldn’t do more than repeat the word. “OK?”

“I would…I _will_ believe you if you say that from now on, you’ll do your best to feed without killing.”

Beyond those words, Spike could hear more than what she said. It was a bargain they were striking, and if he broke the terms he had chosen for himself, he had no doubt that he would lose her, probably before losing his life too. It was a good thing that he meant what he had said.

She extended her hand between them, to seal their agreement with a handshake. He took it, and used this hold to pull her into his arms. She let out a surprised gasp, but she was smiling when he crushed his mouth to hers, and he wanted to crow to the night and whoever wanted to listen that he had won this battle. That they had both won.

*

As was often the case with Spike, Buffy wasn’t too sure of what had just happened. They had been standing, kissing with the same passion they had each put into their fight earlier. And now they were still kissing – oh God, were they ever – but she was on the grass, Spike half lying on top of her, resting on his forearm so that his weight felt more comfortable than overwhelming. He was grinding his crotch against hers, and the hardness there sent sparks up her spine every time it pressed against her clit. All she could do was hang on for dear life, her fingers woven through the short strands of his hair.

She was panting when he pulled his mouth away, and it took her a few seconds to notice he was tugging and pulling at the buttons of her shirt, exposing more and more of her skin to the cool night air and his quickly warming hand. The shudder that shook her wasn’t completely due to his light touch.

“Not here,” she breathed, closing her hand on top of his to still it.

A blink brought his eyes back to hers and she shuddered again, this time at the pure heat of his gaze.

“Someone could see us,” she insisted. 

With a light laugh, he looked around. “Someone? Like who? You’re the only one with a heartbeat ‘round here, luv.” Even as he finished, a light frown crossed his brow and he glanced around them again. “But I suppose we could take this to somewhere a bit more comfortable.”

A hard press of his mouth against hers, a flicker of his tongue at the scar on her lips, and he was helping her up. She buttoned just enough of her shirt again to be decent while watching, caught between amusement and nervousness, as he adjusted himself in jeans that had never seemed so tight.

“You’re trying to kill me,” he accused good-naturedly.

“Not anymore,” she laughed, and took his hand to pull him back toward his apartment.


	26. In which naughtiness ensues.

On the way back to the flat, Buffy’s scent was a mix of excitement and impatience, and every time she turned her face toward Spike, her features filled with barely hidden incredulity and wonder. Spike knew where the incredulity came from; only a couple of hours earlier the breach between them seemed insurmountable, and now there they were, ready to seal their bargain in a most pleasurable fashion. 

Something changed when they reached the apartment however, and her scent shifted abruptly when Spike locked the door. He tried to keep his face blank as he watched her take a few steps inside. It wasn’t just her scent that reflected the sudden change in mood. The proud fighter he had battled in the cemetery, the one who had stood tall and looked him straight in the eye had disappeared, replaced by a nervous girl Spike had met before. She wasn’t as scared as the first time he had taken her to his flat however, and he didn’t plan to let that stop him this time.

He shrugged out of the duster and threw it over a nearby chair. The boots came next, and she flinched at the dull thump they made when they hit the floor.

“Not changing your mind, are you?”

She half-turned toward him but didn’t meet his gaze. Her eyes widened just a bit as she watched him get rid of his button up shirt, then of the black t-shirt beneath it. He couldn’t help grinning at the stare she gave his bare torso. He might have flexed his muscles a bit as he approached her.

“I don’t…I mean, I’m not…it’s just…”

He was just a step in front of her now, and he could already feel the heat radiating from her. His whole body screamed for more of it, more of her, and he wouldn’t wait much longer. Even getting to the bedroom would take too much time now.

With a visible effort, she looked up until she met his eyes. Her smile seemed just as diffident. “We…we can take this slow, right?”

Everything Spike was, everything he felt wanted to scream that no, they couldn’t, that he had been too patient by waiting until now and how could she ask him to restrain himself any longer. He had stopped before when she hadn’t been ready, had tried not to push too hard, had even struck that bargain about not killing humans. As much as he had fought it, she had changed him, already, one small touch at a time, and he refused to change anymore to please her. He wanted her, he needed her, and he would have her, here, now, fast and hard.

And yet…the words came out easily, all of them sincere.

“Sure. As slow as you need.”

She accepted that statement with a small nod, and allowed Spike to undo the buttons of her shirt for the second time that night. She was trembling when the fabric fell off her shoulders to pool at her feet, and for a moment Spike thought that it was from nerves. He found out otherwise when she closed the small gap between them and looped her arms around his neck, drawing him in for a kiss that was pure fire and need. She wanted this, he realized, as much as he did. Maybe slow wouldn’t be too bad after all.

*

Buffy’s shirt was the first to fall at Spike’s hands, then her bra, leaving her bare-chested. She fought back the urge to cover herself, only to be rewarded by the hungry look in Spike’s eyes. She let out a small undignified yelp when he picked her up without warning, and clung to him as he carried her to his bedroom. She had been in there before, the very first night she had followed him to the apartment, and this time she intended to stay for the entire night – even if that thread of fear was still lurking, curling itself on the edge of her consciousness.

He deposited her onto the mattress more gently than she had expected, and made short work of her shoes and socks, taking only a moment longer to pull her jeans down her legs.

“What happened to slow?” she asked, her voice trembling despite the amused tone she had tried to adopt.

Spike grinned. “’M not inside you yet. That’s slow for me.”

She blinked at that, suddenly very aware that there wasn’t much at all between her and Spike – thin gray cotton panties, a few inches, and black jeans that Spike was unbuttoning now, his eyes and grin on her the entire time. She couldn’t help alternating glancing up at his face and down again at the strip of flesh he was exposing. She blushed and looked away when his cock was finally freed and strained up toward his belly, but before he had stepped out of his jeans, she was looking again.

“Like what you see?”

He was stroking himself now, loosely gripping his cock and running his hand up and down the shaft. Buffy wished she had dared reached forward to join her hand to his.

“You can touch, you know.”

Spike’s tantalizing words mirrored her thoughts so well that they startled Buffy and she looked up. He was still grinning, but his expression was growing more and more hungry as his eyes trailed over her. Taking a deep breath, she moved up the bed until she was beneath the sheet. She then tugged her panties off and dropped them over the edge of the bed before turning off the bedside lamp.

“You can touch too,” she said, and felt almost proud when her voice did not waver – at least not too much.

Immediately, he slid in the bed next to her, lying alongside her and leaning over his forearm, his cock pressing insistently against her hip. His left hand was cool when it skimmed up her leg, then traced across her belly, finally coming to rest over her breast. His palm cradled her hardening nipple. If Buffy shuddered, it wasn’t at the difference in temperatures.

Too soon, his hand moved back, retracing its way back to her thigh and staying there to massage softly. She didn’t have time to miss the soft touch; he leaned over her, his lips trailing along her skin until they were caressing her puckered nipple. At the same time, the sneaky hand on her thigh slid between her legs, barely brushing against her curls before pressing against her clit. Buffy gasped.

“Still not touching,” Spike commented, his words a cool caress against her flesh.

Hesitantly she reached toward him and ran the tips of her fingers over his skin, tracing the lines of his abs, the dip of his hip, learning the contours of his body. Emboldened by the quiet appreciative sounds he let out, she slid her hand to his cock and touched it just as lightly. It twitched as though acknowledging her and she laid her palm over the length to feel it better.

Spike chose that moment to pinch her clit between his thumb and forefinger; Buffy practically jumped at the sensation – it was only the beginning. His free hand and lips suddenly seemed to be all over her, caressing, pinching, stroking relentlessly and pushing her toward her pleasure even as his fingers pushed inside her. 

It took her by surprise, quick as a lightning strike and as blinding. It was suddenly hard to breathe, hard to think, and she clutched at Spike’s shoulders like an anchor.

“Pretty, pretty Slayer,” he murmured against her temple.

She wondered how much he could see in the near darkness. He started touching her again, though his fingers were even lighter than before on her still trembling body.

“Beautiful Buffy.”

She had never thought she’d get a chance at this, and someone who cared enough about her to cherish her, to make her believe that what she felt mattered. She had long ago accepted that she would die alone in a back alley or a cemetery, probably with a Watcher nearby documenting how she had failed in her last fight. And as far as she had figured, on these long days when watching silly TV shows had not been enough to distract her from gloomy thoughts, the only way for her not to die a virgin would have been to pick up a somewhat decent guy somewhere for a night – a prospect that had never been particularly appealing.

Now though, even if fate or the Hellmouth decided that she had to die in a day or in a week – unlikely as it may be if Spike patrolled by her side as he had hinted he would – she would have felt this at least once. She would have felt – she was feeling – the fire of his touch, even where his skin merely ghosted over hers. And in the same instant, she felt cold, so cold still because as close as Spike was, it wasn’t close enough. 

“I’m…I mean, I want…”

She faltered and licked her lips, unsure what words to use, too embarrassed to say exactly what it was she wanted. 

“I want you.”

For barely a second, she saw his features ripple into those of the demon in the near darkness, so fast that she wondered if she had imagined it. One of her hands let go of his shoulder and fluttered up his neck and to his face, her fingers running lightly over sharp cheekbones and smooth brow.

“I don’t mind,” she murmured, surprised to realize she truly meant the words. “If you want—”

He didn’t let her finish. His mouth covered hers, the kiss almost brutal in its intensity, his tongue unyielding as it hunted down and tangled with hers. Lost in the moment and in him, she paid little mind to his hand on her thigh again, pushing it gently to the side, making room for Spike to settle between her legs. 

The first touch of his cock against her folds was like a jolt of electricity, bringing everything back into focus. Spike merely brushed against her, smearing her wetness against the head of his cock, teasing her and, she was sure, himself. She tried to break off the kiss to urge him on, but he recaptured her lips immediately, pressing his mouth even harder to hers now. 

At the same time, he pressed inside her in one long, smooth glide. 

A flash of pain enveloped Buffy and her body became rigid beneath his, instinctively trying to push him and the pain away. He remained where he was however, heavy but not smothering, his lips still covering hers. When she opened her eyes an instant later, she could see the glint of gold in his. The pain receded to a dull throb, and Buffy relaxed a little. Ever so slowly, his tongue pushed past her lips, reentering her mouth to brush against her tongue. Before she could think of returning the caress, he pulled back, his hips moving to the same slow rhythm, then forward again, still slow and gentle. Buffy began responding to his movements, timidly at first, then more boldly when arching into his touch to intensify his thrusts sent sparks of pleasure flying through her body.

As she clung to him with legs and arms, Buffy could guess the restrained force lying beneath each of his movements, hiding in the soft kisses he now showered over her face and neck. He wanted to go faster, he wanted more than what she was comfortable with at that moment, but he kept this easy tempo – for her. A wave of gratitude submerged her. Tilting her head, she sought his lips again, wanting to thank him but unable to say a word at that moment.

She forgot herself and everything in the rhythm of his hips, lips and hands, content to let the pleasure build in her piece by piece. Unlike before, her orgasm emerged slowly, a flower opening to the caress of the sun, and it spread through her until all she felt was warmth and bliss. She held tight to Spike, hoping that he felt as good as she did, and when he shuddered against her, her name dying on his lips in a whisper, his body suddenly heavier on hers, she smiled and closed her eyes.

Before his weight could become stifling, he rolled to lie down by her side. Buffy shifted to pillow her head against his shoulder.

“That was…” she started, but once more was unsure what to say. 

“Yes?” he prompted her. 

“Wow.”

“Wow?”

“ _Very_ wow.”

His body trembled along hers; she realized he was laughing silently.

“Does that mean you’re ready for a repeat?”

Something sparked between her legs at the idea, and Buffy started saying that a repeat sounded like a good idea indeed; all that came out, however, was a yawn. 

Spike snorted. “Tired already? Where’s that Slayer stamina now?”

She lightly batted at Spike’s chest.

“Give me a minute,” she mumbled through a second yawn. “Be ready for round two before you are.”

A low chuckle dislodged her head from the crook of his shoulder. She started protesting, but gentle hands pulled her and arranged her until she was lying half on, half off Spike, her head tucked beneath his chin, the sheet readjusted to cover them both. She wiggled a little, finding the new position unexpectedly comfortable.

“Comfy.”

Another happy laugh. Soft fingers threaded through her hair, the caress regular and soothing.

“I’ve been called many things in the past hundred years, luv, but that’s a new one.”

She hummed quietly. This was nice. Nice and warm and comfy. And no one had ever called _her_ ‘love’.

“Then I’ll be the first for that too,” he murmured, and she dimly realized she had spoken that thought aloud. “Sleep, then, luv.”

Again, she wanted to protest. She was just closing her eyes for a minute, that was all, and they could keep talking or doing other lovely things after that. But the minute passed, then another one, and she drifted into sleep without realizing she was, soft-spoken words piercing the darkness, now and then, to settle on her soul like as many caresses.

“…because I love you…waiting for you…fire…it's you the one I love…consume my heart…the one who dies…because I love you…”


	27. In which it doesn’t last. Of course it doesn’t.

“I know you have that book! You _always_ have a book about everything! You’re just hiding it to make me miserable!”

Even from her hiding spot in the library’s mezzanine, Buffy could hear Giles’ sigh, down on the first floor. She didn’t need to crane her neck and look to know he’d be cleaning his glasses by now. If anyone asked her, what he needed was to kick Cordelia out of the library altogether. Weren’t people supposed to be quiet in places like this one? The other students down there, seated at the tables and pretending to study, weren’t making a noise louder than the occasional scratch of pencil on paper.

“Miss Chase, I assure you that I have no interest in hiding study material from students. Now please take a seat, or I’ll have to ask you to leave. You are disrupting your peers’ work.”

Giles’ voice remained polite and controlled, but Buffy imagined added inflections where he was lying or bending the truth. It wasn’t study material Cordelia was demanding; she wasn’t enough of a ditz to start ranting about demons and wishes yet again, where so many people were listening in. But it was obvious that she was back to trying to convince Giles that her world, the ‘true’ world as she called it, was much better than this one. As for disrupting anyone’s work, it was only wishful thinking on Giles’ part.

The unusual crowd – because six students _was_ a crowd in this library – was only interested in observing the most scandalous couple in the school’s rumor mill. Buffy should have known that coming to the library to get some studying done during her free period was a bad idea; the curious looks that continued to follow her should have warned her. She had lasted less than ten minutes down there before the looks had become unnerving and she had retreated to the mezzanine. One boy had started coming up the stairs, to pester Buffy or for legitimate reasons, she wasn’t sure, but a dark glance and an ominous cracking of her knuckles had changed his mind. She had caught Giles’ eyes while the boy had scrambled back down, and there had definitely been a flash of amusement there. 

She and Giles had of course nothing to feel guilty about, and any other day Buffy would have endured the stares without a second thought. However, with someone else altogether on her mind, someone who was making her daydream and smile and blush for no particular reason, she had preferred to get out of the way. Anyone looking at her might think these were signs of guilt.

Waking up in Spike’s arms had been a lovely experience, especially since it had given Buffy time to assess her feelings about the night. She had slid off him during the night, to end up lying against his side, his arm curled around her waist, her hand resting over his chest. He took small breaths in, sometimes, and his skin was warm beneath her palm, warm wherever she touched him. She could have let that fool her, but she didn’t. She didn’t need to. Unlike what she had feared, there was nothing she regretted – except maybe having fallen asleep too fast.

She could still remember the sleepy tone of his voice when he had awakened and blinked lazily at her, sexy without even trying.

“’Morning, luv. Ready for more or you want breakfast first?”

She had taken him up on the breakfast offer, but not on the rest. He had not been too happy to hear she intended to go to school rather than miss any more classes, but his grumbling had been good-natured, and his promise that he’d be waiting for her when she returned more than enticing.

Now that she was sitting cross-legged on the mezzanine floor, the hard wood of a bookshelf at her back, her books and notebooks spread out around her, it was difficult to remember why she had thought going to school and confronting suspicious gazes might be more important than staying in bed with her lover.

Sparks danced up her spine at the thought and she bit her bottom lip not to grin like a lunatic. She couldn’t wait to go back.

Trying to refocus on the make-up work she had to do for her literature class, she thumbed through her textbook, looking for the text she was supposed to analyze. The bent corner of a page stopped her; the book had been new when she had received it, and she definitely had not marked the poetry page so. When she glanced over the words on the page, her heart tightened for a second and she knew without a doubt who had creased the corner; those were the words Spike had whispered to her as she had been falling asleep, as soft as his hands on her. She could feel his touch just reading the poem to herself, quiet words that barely stirred the silence.

“ _I do not love you except because I love you;  
I go from loving to not loving you,  
From waiting to not waiting for you  
My heart moves from cold to fire…”_

The end of period bell chimed, echoed by the phone on the first floor. Buffy was still reading as she gathered her things and stood, the open book propped on top of the rest. It was a beautiful poem, and it could have been written just for them. That was probably why Spike had creased the page for her to find it. It might even have been his way of telling her how he felt. Although how she would make him admit as much…

“You can’t do that. The Council—”

Giles’ words, shocked and incredulous, distracted her enough that she slowed down and glanced at him as she was passing by the checkout counter. She was the last student in the library, everyone else having hurried off to their classes. His eyes flickered toward her and he frowned as he listened to the phone.

“Of course I am aware of it. I am her Watcher, I know where she lives.”

She stilled completely at that, her heart picking up speed as she wondered who was on the other end of the line and what they were telling Giles to make his face drain of color like this.

“No. No, I didn’t know about that. I do know they struck a bargain and he is helping… What do you mean, was?”

That last word shattered Buffy’s mind.

Dropping all she held, she started running, and she was out of the library before her books had finished spreading over the library’s floor. She ran out of the school, and continued all the way back to Spike’s apartment, ignoring the stitch that made her breathing painful; ignoring the fear that was threatening to paralyze her if she stopped to even think about it.

She could hear the sirens and smell the smoke two blocks before she arrived.

Blind to anything but the blackened entrance of the building, she tried to rush in, only to be stopped by firemen covered in soot. It took three of them to drive her back beyond the fire truck, where a line of curious neighbors was watching the proceedings.

“Miss, you can’t go in there, my men are still working, there’s nothing you can do except let us do our job.”

The words slid over her like icy slime. She struggled to find her breath and the force to tell them. Each word was a stab through her throat, but she had to. Maybe it wasn’t too late yet.

“In the lower level. In the apartment. He can’t get out. The sun, he’s… ill. He can’t… You’ve got to help him.”

Two of the men immediately ran back toward the building, shouting to their colleagues. The last one stayed just a little longer, and when Buffy met his eyes, she knew he understood what she wasn’t saying. Too many people in Sunnydale knew about vampires. Would he help her, help Spike, or go tell the others not to try so hard?

“Stay safe. If he’s in there, we’ll find your friend.”

Hours seemed to trickle by before someone came back and talked to her in a quiet, calm, too reasonable voice. There was no one in the lower level apartment. Her friend had to have escaped. She would find him soon.

Numb, she retreated past the thinning line of observers and sat down on the edge of the sidewalk. The truck left first. Then the police cars. Night fell, and found the street empty save for her. 

Spike did not come out of hiding to come to her. 

Ignoring the yellow tape warning of danger, she found her way in, then down. The doorjamb where Spike had last waved at her that morning, where she had come back for a quick kiss, seemed naked without a door to hold. The apartment was charred beyond recognition. She had heard someone say that was where the fire had started. Her boots made quiet flopping noise as she stepped through water turned black by ashes, soot and remnants of what had once been furniture. There was nothing for her to find, except the confirmation of what she had known since hearing Giles pronounce that innocent word. Spike was dead. 

Her mind too blank for grief, she trudged back to the street. She ought to have known it wouldn’t last. Of course it couldn’t last. Every time she was happy, something happened to ruin her life. This time, she had even taken Spike down with her. 

An angry fire sparked inside her at the thought of him dying like this, trapped and without a way to save himself. The anger dissolved the blankness and the pain beyond it. She was done with lying down and taking everything that was thrown at her. This time, she would fight, and fight dirty, until she got what she wanted – just like Spike had taught her.

She wasn’t sure how she got back to Giles’ apartment. When she banged on his door, he opened with a glass of alcohol in one hand and a lost look in his eyes.

“I didn’t know they would kill him,” were his first words, and Buffy’s fists clenched even more tightly.

“If I thought you did, you’d already be in intensive care.”

Pushing past him, she strode to the bookshelves that covered an entire wall.

“At least when he was trying to break me down, he wasn’t doing it behind my back, unlike your Council.”

There were too many books in front of her, but she had to start somewhere. She picked one out and started flipping through the pages, reading bits and pieces here and there.

“They’re not my Council anymore. And you’re not my Slayer. Spencer—”

She glanced back to throw him her nastiest glare, and he nodded in reply.

“I guess you don’t care to hear about Spencer.” A few seconds passed, and he seemed to realize what she was doing. “Be careful with that book. It costs more than I make in a year. What are you looking for anyway?”

Exasperated, she dropped the useless book down and turned fully toward him.

“You know what I’m looking for. Where is it, Giles?”

He finished his glass in one long gulp and stepped over to the kitchen counter to refill it.

“Where is what?”

“Don’t play dumb on me. I’m not Cordelia.”

He had never looked as old, as tired, as beaten down as he did when he looked back at her.

“It’s not the answer, Buffy. You—”

“It’s my answer and it’s my choice. Now _where_ is the damn book?”

He couldn’t hold her gaze for more than a moment. With a muffled sigh, he came to the bookshelves and reached behind a row of carefully aligned books to pull a smaller volume from behind them. Buffy grabbed it from him instantly. A piece of paper was sticking out from between the pages. She opened the book and recognized right away, on the drawing on the left hand side, the pendant Cordelia wore around her neck.

“It’s not that easy,” Giles said with another sigh.

“Nothing ever is.”


	28. In which you have to be careful what you wish for.

What Buffy, at first, had taken for a framed poster turned out to be an actual painting. It showed a calm landscape, purple mountains and silver clouds in the background, a green valley in the front with a mansion on the side of a lake. It was the kind of landscape she would have expected to find in a fairy tale storybook, next to the usual “and they lived happily ever after” ending line. To see it here, now, seemed fitting however; she was determined to fight for her happy end.

“I didn’t know you knew where I live.” 

Buffy turned to face Cordelia, her gaze embracing the rest of the bedroom along with her. The furniture looked expensive, the colors of the bedspread, wall paint and curtains too well matched to be anything but purposeful. It was the room of a teenage girl trying to reach toward adulthood and still clinging to her childhood plush toys for a little longer at the same time. Buffy had had one a little like this, long before, and if everything went as she planned, she would have one again very soon.

“I didn’t. I asked Giles.”

Cordelia’s half smile tightened. Buffy wondered if it was at the mention of Giles, or at another reminder that Buffy and she weren’t the friends she sometimes hinted they were. It didn’t matter, though. None of it mattered. Not the painting, or the room, or even Cordelia and what she thought of Buffy. All that mattered was the piece of jewelry around her neck. Buffy’s fingers itched at the idea of simply grabbing the bit of chain she could see peeking out from under Cordelia’s sweatshirt.

“So, what brought you to my humble home? It has to be important for you to even consent to talk to me.”

The jab, this time, was directed at how Buffy had refused to tell Cordelia that same morning why she had been grinning like a fool. It pierced Buffy’s armor of ice with the fugitive reminder of how happy she had been only a few hours earlier, and how far from that she now was.

“Giles said I needed your pendant.”

She could tell the exact second when Cordelia understood. Shock filled her face, then wide-eyed excitement, and finally determination. She crossed her arms, leaning back slightly and squaring her jaw.

“You’re not doing this without me. There is no force on this earth that will make me give you the pendant if you plan to leave me behind, and I don’t care that you’re the Slayer. You have no idea what kind of hell I can raise, so don’t even _think_ about trying to mess with me.”

Of all things, Cordelia seemed ready to fight her, right then and there. Buffy had no reason to get into a hair-pulling contest however.

“OK.”

Cordelia blinked. Her mouth closed with a rather satisfying snap, then opened again when Buffy lifted the backpack off her shoulder to deposit it on the desk. She started to pull herbs and powders out of it.

“What’s…what’s all that?” Cordelia asked, barely above a whisper, and walked over to the door to lock it.

“That’s the way to summon Anyanka.”

Pulling out of her pocket a folded piece of paper, Buffy opened it and laid it flat on the desk, revealing Giles’ handwriting. She checked each line of directions, looking through the bags of herbs at the same time and making sure she had everything. It wouldn’t do to mess things up now.

“Anyanka? Is that… She said her name was Anya. We’re really doing it, then?”

Buffy refrained from saying it was a very stupid question, and instead gestured toward Cordelia’s neck.

“I need the amulet now.”

Her hands trembling, Cordelia lifted the chain off her neck and after a brief hesitation handed it to Buffy. Such a small thing, really, but it would make everything better. Rather than putting it around her neck, she wrapped the chain around her left palm, keeping the amulet itself in the center of her hand. Now she could start the spell.

Two herbs first, and the lit match she dropped inside the golden goblet Giles had given her produced a single flame – and a lot of smoke. Following the directions to the letter, she added the powders and herbs, barely conscious of Cordelia’s hovering presence right at her back. It took only moments before she reached the incantation; she read it without faltering once, adding the last of the herbs to the smoldering goblet right on cue.

“Oh Anyanka, I beseech thee, in the name of all women scorned. Come before me.”

She would have expected bells, a flash of light, something, anything to warn her of the demon’s arrival. But there wasn’t a single sound until Cordelia cleared her throat.

“Are you sure you did that spell right?” 

“Oh, she did. It worked just fine.”

Buffy whirled around to face the demon, just a few feet away from them on the other side of the room. Cordelia did the same, letting out a small shriek.

“The only problem,” Anyanka continued with a smile that bared her teeth, “is that no woman here was scorned.” The smile widened even more. “At least, not in this world.”

“About that. This,” Cordelia started, her gestures encompassing everything around her, “is _not_ what I asked for.”

Anyanka snorted. “You most certainly did. You wished, and I quote, that Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale.” Her eyes flickered to Buffy. “I made no guarantees she wouldn’t show up afterwards.”

“But I never asked for half my friends to be dead or vampires! I never—”

“Cordelia. It’s useless. She granted you your wish and that’s it.”

The outrage in Cordelia’s eyes was only matched by the surprise in Anyanka’s.

“So why did you summon me, then?”

“To avenge a woman, of course.” At Anyanka’s raised eyebrow, Buffy continued. “Her name was Drusilla. She loved a man for a hundred years, and died trying to kill the woman she had foreseen would take him away from her. This man…this man swore to kill her killer in return, and instead…he fell in love with her. And he never avenged Drusilla.”

Buffy fought herself not to glance at Cordelia, unwilling to know what she thought, or even if she fully understood.

“I will flay him alive,” Anyanka declared, her hands rising in the air. “I will make his flesh turn to—”

“You can’t. He’s dead.”

The cold of Buffy’s voice when she said that word only reflected the ice in her heart.

Hands stopping in midair before going back down to rest on her hips, Anyanka tilted her head to one side; she looked annoyed.

“Do you enjoy making me lose my time, silly girl? I could flay _you_ for that”

“He’s dead,” Buffy repeated, “but he died after sleeping with Drusilla’s killer. He died…happy. But in the other dimension, where Cordelia came from, he’s still alive. And Drusilla can be avenged there.”

For long, long seconds, Buffy held her breath until the air in her lungs was fire. It didn’t warm her at all.

“I’m not buying it,” Anyanka finally said, now crossing her arms. “I’ve been in this business for centuries. I can tell when I’m being led by the nose. And the way you talk about that guy… You’re the killer. You’re the one he slept with rather than kill. If you think I’m sending you to a world where he’s alive, you can keep dreaming.”

She started laughing, a nasty, throaty laugh that died in her throat when Buffy raised the fist she had been holding closed at her side since doing the incantation and opened it, revealing the pendant in the palm of her hand.

“That’s mine,” Anyanka hissed, taking a step forward.

Buffy closed her palm again.

“That’s yours. And from what I’ve heard, it’s the center of your power. So tell me, what happens if I crush it in my hand?”

Another laugh, this one uneasy.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m the Slayer. Just try me.”

It had been Giles’ idea. Buffy was beginning to think it had been a damn good one, at that.

*

_The armchair creaked when Giles sat up, leaving both the book he had been copying from and the sheet of paper with the directions he had copied on the coffee table. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and looked up at Buffy, standing just a few feet from him. She had watched him write in silence, biting down her requests that he hurry up. Time did not matter anymore._

_“Buffy…Have you thought about what you’ll do if Anyanka does not consent to your request?”_

_The words were quiet, but Buffy received them as though they were a blow, her resolve wavering. For the first time, the thought was surfacing that it might not work. It was a wild idea, born from too much grief and crushed hopes. She was tired of fighting, tired of playing by rules when everybody else was ignoring them. It was time to get any kind of help she could – even if that meant playing with alternate dimensions and shifting realities, something she had heard Giles decry ever since she had arrived in Sunnydale._

_Before she knew what was happening, Giles made her sit down on the sofa and placed a half filled glass of amber in her hand. She took a small sip, and it burned a trail of fire down her throat. Across from her, Giles sat again._

_“I’ve researched this kind of demon extensively since Miss Chase first told me about what had happened to her. I had to cross-reference several sources, in addition to this book.” He pointed to the coffee table with a tilt of his head. “Most sources mention or describe Miss Chase’s pendant, and I have come to believe that shattering it might cancel Anyanka’s granted wishes.”_

_He didn’t add anything, but then he didn’t need to. Buffy had heard Cordelia talk about her world as often as he had, if not more. If even half what she claimed was true, it meant a much brighter reality for them, although they wouldn’t remember escaping this one._

_She wouldn’t remember what she had shared with Spike, if that was how it had to end, but she wouldn’t remember either losing him._

*

“So what wish are you making, exactly?” Anyanka said after what had seemed like an eternity to Buffy. “Just so I know what we’re talking about.”

“The world where Cordelia came from? I want to go there.”

Cordelia coughed noisily, and threw Buffy an eloquent glare.

“ _We_ want to go there,” she amended herself.

“That’s your wish? For you and your little friend here to be inserted into a different world? How do you even know he’ll want you in that world too?” 

Buffy shook her head. She had thought about that too, and she was ready to take that risk. From the bits and pieces Cordelia had given her over the weeks, many things would be different. There would be that souled vampire to deal with, and her mother, and so many other details. Yet she, at least, would remain the same. And if she knew Spike at all, the core of who he was would be the same too, and it was that core she loved. It was that core, she was ready to bet everything on it, who had recognized his love for her in a poem from Neruda.

“As long as he’s alive, I’ve got a chance. And if it doesn’t work, he owes me a last dance.”

A small, dangerous smile fleeting on her lips, Anyanka thrust her hand forward for a handshake. She waited, perfectly immobile, until Buffy cautiously offered her hand, the pendant tied tight in its center. They clasped hands, and Anyanka’s smile turned into a near grimace.

“So that is your wish, then? For you and Cordelia to be thrust into the world she came from?”

Buffy swallowed hard. “Yes. That’s my wish.”

“And do you plan to kill Drusilla again to get him back, in that perfect world of yours? What if this time he does avenge her?”

Buffy’s grip tightened, both because the demon’s words were touching her greatest fear, and because she was clutching at the pendant. Before Buffy could stop her, she had ripped it free from her hand. Her laughter filled the room, just as it filled Buffy with dread.

“Done.”


	29. In which living can be quite daunting.

Cordelia’s car came to a smooth stop in a driveway that nothing distinguished from the ten other driveways around it. The street of aligned houses and manicured lawns was so plain and normal that Buffy couldn’t help feeling it was a bit creepy. Surely, as soon as the sun finished setting, the entire neighborhood would show its true nature and demons would start crawling out of the flowerbeds.

“We’re there!” Cordelia exclaimed in that overly perky tone that had been hers since they had arrived in this place. “This is where you live.”

Unable to shake off the feeling of strangeness, Buffy stepped out of the car and observed the house for a few moments. It was completely and utterly non-descript. She slowly followed Cordelia to the front door, her mind running through all the places she had lived in for the past couple of years. This looked as though it would be a definite improvement over the dilapidated buildings where she had slept while she had been on the run, that cold efficiency apartment in Cleveland, the motel when she had first arrived in Sunnydale, even Giles’ apartment. Or Spike’s.

A flash of pain at the memory of the apartment blackened by fire transformed into steel determination and Buffy closed her fists tightly for a second before opening them again. She had been in this new world for less than an hour, and of course she hadn’t seen Spike yet, but she knew he was alive, somewhere, and it was only a question of time before they met. Until then, she had to learn how to live here, in shoes that fit her perfectly but weren’t exactly hers.

On Cordelia’s prompt, Buffy opened the door and stepped inside. The ordinary exterior was matched by an ordinary interior, with pictures on the walls, artwork here and there, and the smell of something cooking drifting from the kitchen.

“There you are. Weren’t you supposed to be home two hours ago? It’s too late to go to the mall now.”

Her eyes widening, Buffy looked up at the woman who was descending the staircase. She had known Joyce would be there, of course, but she still found it difficult not to pull back, or even run away.

“I’m…sorry?” she tried, diffident.

“It’s my fault, Mrs. Summers,” Cordelia jumped in. “I asked Buffy to study with me and we lost track of time.”

Joyce seemed mollified by the lie – or maybe it was Cordelia’s beaming smile. She hadn’t stopped smiling ever since they had found themselves standing on the deserted Sunnydale High campus, almost an hour earlier. She had even seemed close to shed a tear or two when she had found her car in the parking lot, and she had insisted on driving around town just to show Buffy how much better this world was. So far, the main difference as far as Buffy was concerned was that Cordelia wasn’t whining anymore.

“I guess we can go to the mall tomorrow,” Joyce sighed, though she was smiling. “Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Would you like to stay with us, Cordelia?”

“Thank you Mrs, Summers but I can’t, I’ve got to go home. As soon as Buffy shows me that book in her room, that is.”

Blinking dumbly at her, Buffy wondered what she was talking about. Cordelia’s pointed look seemed to indicate she ought to get up the stairs so she did just that, tensing despite herself when she passed by Joyce. When she reached the landing, she let Cordelia walk in front of her and followed her inside a bedroom.

It was only when she saw the stuffed pig by the bed, a memento from her childhood, that it dawned on her that this was _her_ bedroom. She looked at the butterflies on the wall, at the slightly messy desk, at the clothes peaking out of the half-open closet, and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

“There. Look at that.”

Cordelia had closed the door, then picked up a picture from the desk. She handed it to Buffy.

“That’s Willow and Xander,” she said, pointing to the oddly familiar girl and boy on each side of Buffy on the picture. All three of them looked…happy. “They’re your friends in this world. Like, you’re inseparable.” There might have been a hint of jealousy in those last words, though it was hard to imagine Cordelia jealous of anything.

Out of the blue, Buffy understood why they looked so familiar, just as she remembered them dissolving into clouds of ashes.

“They’re the vampires Spike killed in the library.”

Cordelia nodded. “Except, they’re not vampires here. They kinda help you patrol.”

Shaking her head lightly, Buffy tried to wrap her mind around that. It had been one thing to accept Spike’s help on patrol; he was a born fighter. She could hardly imagine these two grinning kids with stakes in their hands.

“Anything else you need to know right now?” 

Cordelia looked in a hurry to leave and so Buffy let her go despite the dozen questions that were cluttering her mind. She would figure things out as she went. She had survived Master vampires, demons, two Hellmouths and an asylum. This couldn’t possibly be any more difficult.

*

“Buffy? The science room is this way.”

Pushing a smile to her lips, Buffy nodded to Willow. “Silly me. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Willow looked truly worried. Buffy was fast learning that worrying was part of Willow’s nature, just like being goofy was part of Xander’s. “Are you sure you’re OK? Maybe that blow to the head was even worse than you said. I think you should see a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” Buffy assured her, rubbing the non-existent bump at the back of her head. “I promise. Just bear with me.”

That bump to the head was Buffy’s excuse to many things, in the couple of weeks that followed. She blamed it for the inside jokes she wasn’t getting, for the places and people she didn’t recognize, for her blank looks at the allusions to a past she hadn’t lived, and for being more distant from her friends than they were apparently used to. Yet slow step after slow step, she began finding her place in this new world. 

Willow, Xander and even Oz in his quiet way didn’t give her much of a choice. They were around her more often than not, accepting her quirks, including her in their banter even when she would have felt safer remaining on the outside. She started opening toward them, and thinking of them as – maybe not friends yet, but friends to be. Finding herself nearly burned at the stake next to Willow after a month or so definitely helped strengthen their bond. Strangely enough, it also strengthened Buffy’s relationship with Joyce.

Day after day, it was hard to call her ‘Mom’, hard not to flinch when Joyce was displeased for whatever reason, and even harder not to fling in her face that Buffy wasn’t crazy, and that she would run away rather than return to the asylum. This Joyce hadn’t locked up her daughter. It was unfair to punish her for what someone else had done. And so Buffy tried to forget, and to remember the love she had felt for her mother before she had been called to be the Slayer. When Joyce was possessed by demon spirits and directed the witch hunt that caught Buffy and Willow, Buffy could have fallen back into the old patterns and withdrawn from her; instead, the experience made her realize that the only way Joyce would hurt her was if she was under a spell of some sort. It became easier to trust her after that.

Things with Giles weren’t as simple. Of all of them, he seemed to be the one who noticed the most changes about Buffy, especially in the way she fought. He often commented about it in the first couple of weeks, but never outright asked what had changed. Buffy still remembered how he had helped her in her world, first sheltering her and giving her a taste of normal life, then giving her the means to change her life for the better, and because of that he was the one she trusted most – until her birthday. She would have expected being betrayed by the Council; after all, they had betrayed her before. But to have Giles rob her of her Slayer strength was a blow to the trust she had in him, and even after he rebelled against the Council, even after he helped her and apologized, she couldn’t help seeing him through the eyes of betrayal. It would take time before she could trust him again.

The strangest thing to adjust to however was Angel.

*

From her first nights in this world, and especially with what had happened at Christmas, Buffy had made it clear to Angel that whatever she might have felt for him before, it was over. He had easily accepted her words, too easily, she sometimes thought, and still he kept coming to her, every few nights, to fight by her side in a brooding silence that rubbed her nerves raw.

It was so different to have him there than it had been to have Spike that every one of his visits made Buffy miss Spike even more. Months had passed, and there was still no sign of him. Sometimes, she wanted to just go and hunt him down. From the bits of information she had gathered, on his last visit to Sunnydale he had hinted at being in South America. That was a beginning if she were ever to go look for him, but hardly enough to find him fast.

“Do you think Spike will ever show up again?” she asked Angel one night.

Angel looked at her with surprise and incomprehension. “Spike? Let’s hope not! What made you think of him?”

 _The color of the moon. The leather of your jacket. The scent of cigarette smoke in the air. Just about anything and everything.  
_  
“Nothing. It’s just been a while since he showed up. I wonder what he’s up to.”

Angel snorted, and his voice took a bitter tint. “Nothing good. And he’ll be back. He always comes back. I should have staked him when he first came to Sunnydale.”

Buffy stopped walking abruptly, and glared at Angel’s back as he took a few more steps. She had to bite her tongue not to tell him exactly what she thought of him. So often, he had alluded to how they couldn’t be together, how it was too dangerous, and still he kept coming to her, kept looking at her as though expecting that she’d declare her undying love for him and join his ‘Woe is us’ chorus. If it had been Spike in front of her, if something as silly as a curse or a soul or the lack of one had stood in his way, she wanted to believe he would have found a solution. 

When Angel looked back at her, she turned on her heel and walked away, throwing behind her some excuse about needing to be home early. 

Rather than going home however she kept walking through Sunnydale long after the curfew imposed on her by her mother, letting her thoughts wander, looking for a bleached-blond vampire even if she didn’t truly expect to find him tonight. Something inside her claimed that she would know when he would return, and that she would find him at once. All she had to do was wait for him to come back, and as Angel had said, as she knew deep in her bones and soul, he always came back. Then the dance would start again.

She didn’t expect him to be exactly the same. Their history was different, in this world, and the least of the differences was that she hadn’t killed Drusilla. Sometimes, when she looked at herself in a mirror, she touched her lips where they should have been slashed by a scar, or scratched at the two sets of bite marks that weren’t a reminder to how close he had come to killing her. But despite everything, she had hope – and for her, after years of darkness, it meant more than anything else. She was the same woman he had fallen for, and she wouldn’t relent until he fell again.

Until then, she needed to deal with an evil mayor, a rogue Slayer, and a souled vampire who made pitiful puppy eyes at her. It didn’t matter, though. If it meant having Spike in her life again, she was ready to take on the world and change it.

In fact, she had already done just that.


	30. In which the curtains close with a poem, and a kiss.

The road sign made a satisfying crashing noise as it died, yet again, beneath the De Soto’s wheels. A vicious smile twisted Spike’s lips. He was back to Sunnydale, but this time it would be different. This time, he wouldn’t be confronting the Slayer head on, or drinking himself into a stupor. No kidnapping, no spells, no complicated plans that never ended well, no bargains, no humiliating defeat at the hands of a small blonde. No Drusilla either, whether at his side or as a shadow looming over him; they were done, and for good. It had taken him some time to drown the pain of that realization, but he was over her, now. He damn well was.

This time, his path was clear. He would keep a low profile and remain hidden while he looked for the Amara jewel. It had been Drusilla’s unwitting parting gift to him. Ramblings that anyone else would have ignored had caught his attention, and after double-checking what he thought she had meant, Sunnydale had appeared as a very good candidate for the charmed bauble. Soon, he would have it, and then the world would be his. And the first thing on his agenda would be to kill the Slayer. Simple, elegant, it was a great plan and he was determined to see it through. He had killed two Slayers already, this one was long overdue for her comeuppance.

His best intentions, however, did not insure a better end than his past visits to the cursed town, as he soon discovered.

It was only two nights after his arrival. He had gone out early for a quick feed before returning to his digging. He had half a mind to find someone to help with the dirty work. It would go faster, certainly, if he didn’t have to do all of it by himself. And if he chose well enough, his companion might also help distract him when he wasn’t digging.

She came out of nowhere. One second, the cemetery was as still and empty as any respectable graveyard ought to be, and the next, she was sitting on the raised pedestal of a statue, looking as though she had been waiting for him. Spike threw a disgruntled look at the crypt, just a few yards behind her, that he had claimed as his own. He wouldn’t believe she was here, so close to his lair, purely by accident.

“I tried,” he muttered to no one in particular, taking the night and the graves around him as witnesses. “She’s the one who fucked everything up this time.”

A brief flash of puzzlement seemed to cross her features as she stood and took a few steps toward him, hands pushed deep in the pockets of her short jacket.

“I did what, now?”

“What you always do. Ruin everything.”

For a short moment he thought—no, it had to be a trick of the light. She had no reason to be hurt by his words.

Rolling his shoulders to loosen up the tension in them, Spike ostentatiously looked around her.

“All alone, I see. No giant brooder by your side. No friends either. That’s a nice change, just you and me.”

When he returned his gaze to her, the mopping face he expected wasn’t there; instead, she was grinning. He was beginning to wonder how much she had changed while he had been gone.

“A lot has changed, since we last met,” she echoed his thoughts. “But I’m still me. And I hope you’re still you.”

What was _that_ supposed to mean?

She finally pulled her hands out of her pockets, and the stake Spike expected didn’t materialize. He watched her clasp her fingers together and stretch her arms high above her head—he struck just as she was beginning to lower them again.

The blow to her face seemed to catch her by surprise, and she quickly retreated out of his reach again. She wiped the blood trickling from her nose with the back of her hand, and seemed almost shocked when she looked up at Spike again.

“I think I had forgotten how hard you hit.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Might be.”

When he attacked again, she was ready and parried all his blows, although not once did she try to hit back. It was beginning to look as though she were indulging him, and Spike didn’t like the feeling in the slightest. When he killed her, he wanted it to happen because he was simply better than she was, not because she had let him.

“Will you fight, you bloody woman!”

His outburst seemed to amuse her, and she was grinning again when she started circling him sideways. Spike moved along with her, wondering if she’d finally attack.

“You’re all alone too,” she flung his words back at him. “Where’s Drusilla?”

Spike couldn’t help snarling at that. When he lunged at her, she easily slipped out of the way.

“I’m guessing things aren’t too bright between you two, then. I could say I’m sorry, but I’m not. At least now you’re free to fall again, and this time without the guilt.”

With his experience at deciphering senseless babble, Spike ought to have understood what she was saying; and still, none of it was making sense. It didn’t help that she was pressing on a still sore wound.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he lashed out. “And what game are you playing here? I thought we were fighting.”

“I’m playing the game you taught me,” she shot back. “And as for fighting…”

Her first blow caught him by surprise, much as he had surprised her only a few minutes earlier.

“Do you like poetry?”

The unexpected question made him falter once more, and this time he stumbled back when she made contact with his middle. Who had told her… It had to be Angel. Why in hell would he rattle on about old stories?

“I used not to,” she continued when he didn’t answer, never ceasing to attack and trade blows with him the entire while. “I didn’t understand much about it. And then someone made me read Neruda. Opened my eyes and made me understand.”

Suddenly, she seemed to flip on a switch. Where they had been well matched until now, blocking each other for the most part, she took the advantage, and pushed on.

“I do not love you except because I love you;   
I go from loving to not loving you.   
From waiting to not waiting for you.”

It took Spike a second to realize she was reciting a poem. Strange choice of words to use now, when she was taking over and making him retreat, step by step.

“My heart moves from cold to fire.”

He tried to push back at her, unconsciously slipping into his demon mask as he summoned all the strength and speed he had in him. It worked for a few seconds, then she took over again. She never stopped reciting.

“I love you only because it's you the one I love;  
I hate you deeply, and hating you  
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you  
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume  
My heart with its cruel  
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.”

She had pushed at him and maneuvered him so well that now she had him cornered, his back to the wall of a crypt. All she needed to do was pull out a stake, and with a few more moves and a little luck, it would be over. Yet, she produced no stake. Instead, she stood still, and her voice dropped to a murmur, almost breaking down at one point.

“In this part of the story I am the one who  
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you.”

Spike’s eyes were wide as he watched her move closer still, until they were standing toe to toe and she was leaning toward him. The words she was saying made no sense, no sense whatsoever, and at the same time part of him wished they had. It had been a long, very long time since someone had said these words to him and meant them.

“Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.”

Her last words were no more than a whisper, barely a caress before she laid her lips upon his. Spike found himself pulled into the softness of the chaste kiss, and his eyes closed for a second before he realized what was happening. He jerked back, banging his head on the wall behind him, startled and confused.

“What in hell…” he began, but didn’t even know how to finish. The Slayer remained where she stood, so close he could feel the heat of her entire body alongside his even though they weren’t touching; she was smiling.

“You’ll catch on,” she said. “I can wait a bit longer until you do. Now that you’re here, I have all the time in the world.”

Spike still didn’t understand what she was rambling about and it annoyed him greatly – but not as much as the sudden and unwanted thought that she had a beautiful smile.

 

_the end_


End file.
